Israel carries out wave of airstrikes on southern Lebanon

Three towns attacked despite truce with Hezbollah in what Israeli military says was effort to prevent group rearming

Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the southern Lebanese village of Tayr Debba. Picture: Mahmoud Zayyat/Getty

The Israeli military has carried out a wave of airstrikes in southern Lebanon in what it described as an attempt to prevent Hezbollah rearming.

Israeli warplanes struck the towns of Kfar Dounine, Tayr Debba and Zawtar al-Sharqiya on Thursday, about an hour after issuing evacuation warnings to residents. No deaths had been reported at the time of publishing.

The attacks came despite a ceasefire deal signed between Hezbollah and Israel nearly a year ago that ended 13 months of fighting.

Under the terms of the deal, Hezbollah is to disarm, both parties are meant to stop firing on each other and Israel is meant to withdraw from Lebanese territory. Israel still holds five positions in Lebanon.

Before the airstrikes, an Israeli military spokesperson published maps of buildings it was going to target, telling residents to move at least 500 metres away from them. The spokesperson claimed the buildings were part of Hezbollah’s military infrastructure.

The Israeli military bombs Lebanon on a near-daily basis, but Thursday’s strikes were unusual in their intensity and for being preceded by an evacuation warning.

They came hours after Hezbollah had sent an open letter to Lebanon’s leadership saying that while it was committed to the ceasefire, it still had a “legitimate right” to resist what it called the “Israeli occupation”. The group has fired at Israel once since the signing of the ceasefire in December 2024.

Hezbollah said it stood behind the Lebanese army, but it condemned direct negotiations with Israel, a prospect recently floated by Lebanon’s president, Joseph Aoun.

Israeli officials have accused Hezbollah in recent days of attempting to rebuild its military capabilities in Lebanon after the group was devastated by the war with Israel.

“Israel will continue to defend all of its borders, and we continue also to insist on the full enforcement of the ceasefire agreement between Lebanon and Israel,” the government spokesperson Shosh Bedrosian told reporters on Thursday.

Israel would not allow Hezbollah to recover its military capabilities.

Lebanon’s government has committed to disarming Hezbollah and ensuring the monopoly of weapons lies with the state. It said it had disarmed about 85% of Hezbollah’s weapons caches in southern Lebanon and was aiming to completely disarm the area by the end of the year.

Israel has pressed the Lebanese government to move more quickly on disarmament, but it has said that to do so would risk inflaming internal civil strife.

— The Guardian