Israel strikes Beirut as ceasefire with Hezbollah frays
Israel’s military struck Beirut for the first time since a ceasefire with the Lebanon-based terrorist group Hezbollah started in November.
Israel said its forces hit a Hezbollah drone-storage facility in the suburbs of Lebanon’s capital on Friday, shortly after it sent a warning to civilians to leave the area.
The Israel Defense Forces said Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, had put “terrorist infrastructure in the heart of the civilian population.” It added that the ceasefire was violated earlier in the day because of strikes from southern Lebanon into Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested the Beirut attack was a specific retaliation rather than the start of a wider bombing campaign — on the Lebanese capital or elsewhere in the country.
“We will not allow firing on our communities, not even a small amount,” he said in a statement released by his office on Friday. “We will continue to vigorously enforce the ceasefire, we will attack across Lebanon against any threat to the State of Israel.”
Still, the truce has looked increasingly fragile in recent weeks, with rockets flying into Israel and Israeli forces countering with heavier-than-usual fire.
The Beirut strikes come as Israel’s multi-front conflict with Iran-backed militias intensifies after a period of relative calm earlier in the year. Israel is again conducting ground and air attacks on Hamas terrorists in Gaza, after a ceasefire there collapsed earlier this month. The country is regularly hitting targets in Syria and being attacked by Yemen-based Houthi terrorists.
Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis are all designated terrorist organizations by the U.S. and many other countries.
A U.S. State Department spokeswoman called on Lebanon’s government to act.
“Israel is defending its people and interests by responding to rocket attacks from terrorists in Lebanon,” the spokeswoman, Tammy Bruce, said Friday. “We expect the Lebanese Armed Forces to disarm these terrorists to prevent further hostilities.”
French President Emmanuel Macron criticized Israel, saying the attacks on Beirut violated the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire agreement. Speaking in Paris alongside Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, he said he would bring the matter up with President Donald Trump and Netanyahu.
Aoun said the attacks were unjustified. He added that Hezbollah probably wasn’t responsible for the rockets fired into Israel on Friday morning but that his army was investigating.
The November ceasefire paused a conflict that began when Hezbollah started firing missiles and rockets into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, a day after Hamas attacked the country. Israel and Hezbollah skirmished until September last year, when Netanyahu escalated military operations, striking large parts of Lebanon and sending ground troops into the south.
Hezbollah’s long-standing leader Hassan Nasrallah and other senior commanders were assassinated in a campaign that hugely weakened what was one of the world’s most powerful militias.
Thousands of people in Lebanon were killed and more than one million were displaced. More than 100 Israelis, most of them soldiers, were killed.
Israeli forces withdrew from most areas in southern Lebanon after the ceasefire, apart from five positions. Hezbollah is supposed to withdraw its fighters and weapons from the area, with the Lebanese national army deploying in their place. Israel says that Hezbollah forces are still operating in the area and planning attacks on it from there.
