Israel Hits Another Litani River Bridge as Lebanon’s Prime Minister Says: "We Want the Ceasefire Restored"

Israeli Air Force strikes in southern Lebanon are ongoing, with a central focus on damaging transportation and supply infrastructure used by Hezbollah. According to the Qatari TV station "Al Jazeera", Israeli fighter jets this morning (Monday) destroyed the Al-Qaaqaiya Bridge over the Litani River — one of five main bridges that connected the river's two banks. The same report said three of the bridges had already been destroyed in earlier strikes.

The Lebanese newspaper "Al-Akhbar", which is aligned with Hezbollah, also noted that the bridge was completely destroyed, after being attacked multiple times in recent days.

Lebanon's prime minister, Nawaf Salam, addressed the war in an interview with the Al-Hadath channel and said that "this war was forced on Lebanon". In his words, "I, the president, and several other officials warned against sliding into this war, and I called it 'new adventures'. This is a war between the U.S., Israel, and Iran that we were dragged into, and Lebanon has no direct interest in it at all".

Salam leveled criticism at Hezbollah: "This weapon dragged us into the 'support' adventure, the second 'support', and these are its consequences". He added: "Those who took us into this war acted based on different calculations — calculations of revenge for Khamenei. That was not my role. It was not my role to avenge for Khamenei, and it was not my role to bring the country into the 'support war' for Gaza. And I wish it had truly been support for Gaza. Look at what is happening in Gaza today. We 'supported' Gaza, and then after we finished with supporting Gaza we began getting pulled into others' war on Lebanese soil".

The Lebanese prime minister expressed readiness for a political arrangement: "We have expressed our readiness for negotiations. That readiness has conditions and an agenda. It needs to be set. We launched this initiative, and to this day we have not received a response from Israel about what the vision is for that agenda — where the talks will take place, what the agenda will be, when they will begin, and who will lead them. There is a set of issues that have not yet been agreed, but our initiative for negotiations still stands".

Salam spelled out his country's demands: "We want to restore our sovereignty; we want a complete Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese territory. That is something Israel committed to in the declaration on the cessation of hostilities and has still not implemented. We want the ceasefire restored. On these matters we should not have to negotiate today".

According to him, ending the war is a central goal: "At the top of our priorities today is ending this war as quickly as possible, because its consequences are devastating for the country, and we will spare no political or diplomatic effort. Hence our readiness for negotiations to end this war. On the humanitarian level, less than a week ago UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was here, and we discussed the political track with him and launched with him this call to mobilize aid for our country".