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Israel carried out several airstrikes on southern Lebanon on Wednesday targeting what it said was Hezbollah infrastructure, as a new year’s deadline for the Lebanese state to disarm the group in the south of the country loomed.
Israeli warplanes bombed the valleys of Houmin, Wadi Azza and Nimeiriya in the southern Nabatieh area on Wednesday morning. Residents reported that Israeli drones continued to hover over the area and other areas of south Lebanon and its eastern Bekaa valley after the strikes.
In a statement, the Israeli military said it struck launching sites and military infrastructure belonging to Hezbollah, the presence of which it called “a violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon.”
Israel regularly strikes southern Lebanon, in violation of the more than-year-old ceasefire in place, which ended a 13-month war with Hezbollah. Israel has bombed Lebanon once every four hours on average since the implementation of the ceasefire, according to ACLED, an independent conflict monitor.
Hezbollah shelled Israel once, in the week after the establishment of the ceasefire in December 2024.
Airstrikes have been accompanied by heightening Israeli rhetoric in recent weeks, as a deadline for the Lebanese army to clear all of Hezbollah’s arms from south of the Litani River grows closer.
“There will be no calm in Beirut, nor order and stability in Lebanon, until the security of the state of Israel is guaranteed … Hezbollah: we will disarm them,” Israel Katz, Israel’s defence minister, told parliament in November.
Under a US-approved plan adopted by the Lebanese army, by year’s end, the Lebanese army is meant to clear all Hezbollah infrastructure, weapons and personnel from the area south of the Litani River, which sits about 20 miles from the country’s border with Israel. Israeli forces are meant to withdraw from the country, though its troops continue to occupy five points in the south and regularly conduct ground operations there.
Lebanese officials insist that they have all but finished with the disarmament of Hezbollah in the south and regularly blow up old weapons caches from the group.
Deputy prime minister, Tarek Mitri, said on 17 December that the government was nearly done with disarmament in the south and said while Lebanon was “strictly observing” the ceasefire, that Israel continually violated it.
Israel has rejected the claim, however, and says that Hezbollah is attempting to rebuild itself along its borders.
On Monday, an Israeli drone strike killed three men in a car 10 miles south of the Lebanese city of Saida, far north of the Litani River. Israel claimed that one of the men killed, who was a warrant officer in the Lebanese army, was also a member of Hezbollah and was involved in planning attacks on Israel.
It further pointed to the presence of a Hezbollah member in the army as proof that the Lebanese state was not doing enough to combat the group.
Both the Lebanese army and Hezbollah denied the soldier had any connection to the armed group, with Lebanon’s defence minister, Michel Menassa, saying the accusation was a “malicious attack” on the army.
Israeli media has reported that one of the topics on the agenda in an expected meeting between Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and US president, Donald Trump, is an expanded offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
As Israeli airstrikes continue on south Lebanon, Israeli and Lebanese officials continue to meet in the southern Lebanese town of Naqoura to discuss the status of the ceasefire.
Last Friday, the delegations included civilian representatives for the second time, drawing outrage in Lebanon, which said inclusion of civilian negotiators was paramount to recognition of Israel – a taboo in Lebanese politics. The civilian representatives were meant to discuss nonmilitary issues, such as the potential economic cooperation between the two countries.
Israel said that it considers the diplomatic engagement with the Lebanese state to be separate from its military attacks on Hezbollah and is pushing forward on both tracks.
The Lebanese state has continually appealed to the international community for help to stop what it said were near-daily attacks on its sovereignty.
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