Israel PM hopes Lebanon, Iraq get free of Iran 'grip'

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said Sunday he hoped Lebanon and Iraq "will be able to break free from the strangling grip of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards."

Bennett was addressing lawmakers during a weekly cabinet meeting following last week's gunbattles on the streets of Beirut which killed seven people and as Iraq's Shiite militias, that often serve as a proxy for neighbouring Iran, took a beating in the national election.

Israel sees "developments and trends emerging from below, of forces who simply had enough with Iranian control and influence," said Bennett.

He added said that every place that Iranians enter goes into "a whirlwind of violence, poverty, instability and failure."

The confrontation in Beirut erupted over a long-running probe into last year's massive port blast in the city and raised fears of the country being drawn into further violence.

Underlying the violence are Lebanon's entrenched sectarian divides and growing pushback against the port investigation by the two main Shiite Muslim parties, the powerful Hezbollah group and its allied Amal Movement.

Hezbollah said it would not be pulled into more violence.