Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for Israel to occupy southern Lebanon and "severely damage" Beirut, in comments given to the press following a parliament session during which the Israeli government discussed the latest cease-fire proposal.
"The situation in the North is deteriorating," Smotrich said, cited by Israeli media. "We need to move the security zone from Israeli territory in Galilee to southern Lebanon, including a ground invasion."
He called for "the occupation of the territory and the removal of Hezbollah terrorists and hundreds of thousands of Lebanese — among whom Hezbollah is hiding, beyond the Litani River — combined with a deadly attack on all Lebanese infrastructures, the destruction of Hezbollah's centers of gravity and severe damage to the capital of terrorism in Beirut."
"We need to create a situation in which Lebanon is faced, for the next twenty years, with efforts to rebuild what remains after the blow inflicted on it, and not with waging terror against the State of Israel," said Smotrich, who leads the far-right Religious Zionism party, which is part of Netanyahu’s coalition government.