News update
Israel says it targeted Hezbollah sites in southern Lebanon, adding pressure to a US-brokered ceasefire.
Israel’s military has carried out waves of air attacks in southern Lebanon, causing damage to several homes, according to Lebanese state media, as anger mounts over repeated Israeli violations of a ceasefire with Hezbollah agreed upon last year.
Lebanon’s National News Agency reported late on Monday that Israeli jets targeted Mount Safi, the town of Jbaa, the Zefta Valley, and the area between Azza and Rumin Arki in “several waves”.
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There was no immediate report of casualties.
The Israeli military, in a post on X, said it struck several sites linked to Hezbollah, including a special operations training compound used by its elite Radwan Force.
The military said several buildings and a rocket-launching site were also hit.
The attacks come days after Israel and Lebanon dispatched civilian envoys to a military committee tasked with overseeing their ceasefirea step towards a months-old demand by the United States, which has been urging the two countries to broaden their talks.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said on Friday that his country “has adopted the option of negotiations with Israel”, and that the talks were aimed at stopping Israel’s continued attacks on his country.
The current ceasefire, brokered by Washington in 2024, ended more than a year of clashes between Israel and Hezbollah.
But Israel has continued to strike Lebanon on a near-daily basis.
A United Nations report released in November said that at least 127 civilians, including children, have been killed in Lebanon since the ceasefire went into effect. UN officials have warned that the strikes amount to “war crimes”.
Tensions spiked further last week when Israel bombed Beirut’s southern suburbskilling Hezbollah’s top military commander, Haytham Ali Tabtabai.
The group, still weakened after last year’s conflict, has yet to respond.
Israel has accused Lebanon of not doing enough to compel Hezbollah to relinquish its arsenal across the country, a claim the Lebanese government denies.
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said last week that Lebanon wanted to see the ceasefire monitoring mechanism play a more robust role in verifying Israel’s claims that Hezbollah is rearming, as well as the work of the Lebanese army in dismantling the armed group’s infrastructure.
Asked whether that meant Lebanon would accept US and French troops on the ground as part of a verification mechanism, Salam said, “Of course”.
The continued Israeli strikes have raised fears in Lebanon that the Israeli military could expand its air campaign further.
Hezbollah has said it is unwilling to let go of its arms as long as Israel continues its strikes on Lebanese territory and its occupation of five points in the country’s south.
