Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich today called on Hamas fighters to hand over their weapons and leave Gaza.
"Today, at a cabinet meeting, I will ask that US President Donald Trump's plan be accepted. That all hostages be released immediately and that Hamas leave Gaza and hand over its weapons," said Smotrich.
He added that Israel would open the "gates of hell" to Hamas if Hamas rejected the proposal.
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Israel will leave a small number of troops in five strategic locations in southern Lebanon after the February 18 withdrawal deadline, an Israeli military spokesman said on Monday, Reuters reports.
"We must currently remain at these points to protect Israeli citizens, ensure that this process is completed and ultimately hand them over to the Lebanese Armed Forces," army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani told a press briefing, adding that the move was in line with the ceasefire agreement's mechanism.
Hundreds of former senior Israeli military officials have written a letter addressed to the Israeli leadership and the public, in which they strongly warn against the "irresponsibility and recklessness of renewing the war" in Gaza without a clear strategic goal.
Former Major General Matan Vilnai heads a list of 550 Israelis who supported the letter, which stresses that continuing the military campaign would lead to the deaths of the remaining hostages in Gaza, according to the Maariv newspaper.
The popular Hebrew-language newspaper quotes a letter saying that such a war would also exhaust the military and "lead to a bloody, continuous occupation with no end in sight, with the loss of unprecedented regional opportunities," regarding the normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia.
According to the general, the Israeli government is acting against the will of the people and giving in to the demands of an extreme minority that wants to annex the occupied West Bank and perpetuate the conflict.
The Israeli army announced today that it had killed a commander of the Islamist Hamas movement in Sidon, southern Lebanon, whom it claims was planning attacks on Israel that were "directed and financed by Iran."
It is added that he was killed in a drone strike in the Sidon area.
The attack came a day before the deadline for the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon under a ceasefire agreement that ended Lebanon's Hezbollah's 14-month war against Israel, which was launched in response to Israel's war against the Palestinian Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip.
The original deadline for Israel's withdrawal was the end of January, but Lebanon, under Israeli pressure, agreed to extend the deadline until February 18. It is not yet clear whether Israeli troops will complete their withdrawal tomorrow.
Since the ceasefire was established, Israel has continued airstrikes on southern and eastern Lebanon, claiming to be targeting military sites containing rockets and other weapons.
Israel and Lebanon are exchanging accusations of violating the ceasefire agreement.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said today that he does not expect Israel to withdraw from southern Lebanon by tomorrow, as stipulated in the ceasefire agreement, and indicated that the solution to Hezbollah's weapons is an internal Lebanese issue.
Iran has defended its nuclear program and will not hesitate to continue doing so, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghei said on Monday, a day after Israel and the United States vowed to confront Iran's nuclear ambitions, Reuters reported.
"Iran's peaceful nuclear program is ongoing and has been for the past three decades, based on Iran's rights as a member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty... We will definitely not show any weakness in this regard," he said.
Israel and the United States are determined to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions and its influence in the Middle East, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday after meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Jerusalem.
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Rubio said that behind every terrorist group, behind every act of violence, behind every destabilizing activity, behind everything that threatens peace and stability for the millions of people who call this region home, there is Iran.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived in Saudi Arabia today from Israel, where he offered US support to its ally, Agence France-Presse journalists report.
Rubio is on his first Middle East tour since taking office.
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