The story so far: As the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran enters its fourth week, another, perhaps more brutal, war is unfolding in the region. On March 16, Israel announced the launch of a ground offensive in Lebanon against Hezbollah. It has also carried out massive air strikes in southern Lebanon and the southern outskirts of Beirut, killing at least 1,000 people and displacing about a million. The ground offensive is concentrated in hilltop towns in southern Lebanon, where the Israel Defence Forces are facing stiff resistance from Hezbollah fighters.

Why did Israel launch the offensive?

On paper, a ceasefire had been reached between Hezbollah and Israel in November 2024. The ceasefire was reached after a month-long campaign aimed at weakening Hezbollah, a Shia militant group and political party in Lebanon that maintains close ties with Iran.

When Israel launched its invasion of Gaza after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, Hezbollah fired rockets into the Shebaa Farms, a Lebanese territory occupied by Israel. Israel responded with air strikes, triggering further Hezbollah rocket attacks that displaced thousands of Israelis from the Upper Galilee region.

In September 2024, Israel assassinated Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah in an air strike. The Israeli plan was to disrupt Hezbollah’s command structure before launching a ground offensive. During the ground battle, Israel pushed Hezbollah fighters away from the border and occupied strategically important regions in southern Lebanon. In November that year, Israel agreed to a ceasefire, but it continued air strikes nearly every day in Lebanon, targeting Hezbollah positions. Hezbollah hardly retaliated.

On February 2026, after Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed by a joint Israeli-American air strike, Hezbollah fired hundreds of rockets into northern Israel. Israel retaliated with air strikes, which was followed by the ground offensive.

What is Hezbollah?

Over the past five decades, Israel has carried out multiple attacks in Lebanon. In 1978, Israel launched an incursion into southern Lebanon to push the Palestinian militias based in the region, under the umbrella of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), to the north of the Litani River. In 1982, Israel launched another invasion with the same objective. It managed to force the PLO to relocate from Lebanon, but the consequences of the war led to the rise of Hezbollah as a militant Shia organisation. Iran, where the Shia clergy established an Islamic government in 1979, backed Hezbollah.

When Israeli troops stayed in southern Lebanon to keep a buffer on the Lebanese side of the border, Hezbollah emerged as the major resistance force. Israeli troops, faced with Hezbollah’s guerrilla attacks, were forced to withdraw from Lebanon in 2000 — which was celebrated by Hezbollah as the first “Arab victory against Israel”.

In 2006, Israel attacked Lebanon again, to dismantle Hezbollah’s military infrastructure. After a month-long campaign, Israel had to agree to a ceasefire and pull back. This allowed Hezbollah to rise as a major socio-political and militant movement of Lebanon’s sectarian system, where the army is very weak. But Israel has always called Hezbollah — which it designates as a terrorist outfit alongside the U.S. and their Western partners — an “Iranian proxy”. There was an uneasy calm along the Israel-Lebanon border after the 2006 war, but it was broken by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack.

How strong is Hezbollah today?

Hezbollah, because of its long resistance history and battlefield experience, is generally seen as a powerful fighting force. After the 2006 war, they joined the Syrian civil war to fight alongside the forces of President Bashar al-Assad. Hezbollah’s involvement played a crucial role in turning around the civil war from 2015 to 2018.

Hezbollah, a state within the state in Lebanon, possesses tens of thousands of rockets and missiles. However, in September 2024, Israel’s pager explosions, which targeted Hezbollah’s mid-level commanders, and killed the group’s top leadership, threw it into disarray. Around that time, Abu Mohammed al-Golani, a former al-Qaeda jihadist who was running Syria’s Idlib, started a campaign to take over Damascus. The Syrian Army, which was targeted by hundreds of Israeli air strikes, was in a bad shape. Syria’s three main supporters were Iran, Russia, and Hezbollah. Russia was busy with Ukraine. And Iran’s space for manoeuvre was limited. Hezbollah was pushed back by Israeli attacks. It took only 12 days for Golani’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s Syria branch) to capture Damascus.

The fall of Assad’s government in December cut a vital link between Hezbollah and Iran, which further weakened both sides. From the early 1980s, Iran had provided money, weapons and training to Hezbollah, and Baathist Syria acted as a land bridge between Iran and Syria (through Iraq, at least since 2003). In subsequent months, Israel continued to pound Hezbollah and the group hardly retaliated. But Hezbollah was also using this period to rebuild its command structure and replenish its arsenals, preparing for an eventual war. And when Israel and the U.S. killed Khamenei in February 2026, they joined the war, drawing in thousands of troops into Lebanon.

What does Israel want to achieve?

Israel has declared that it wants to dismantle Hezbollah’s military capabilities, push them away from southern Lebanon, and create a buffer inside the Lebanese territory. Israel has issued evacuation orders for the whole of southern Lebanon and some neighbourhoods in the north of the Litani River. It has bombed some bridges on the river to cut off supplies for Hezbollah. Israel is also pressing the Lebanese government to take action to disarm Hezbollah.

Hezbollah’s version is that it is defending Lebanese territory. It has fired more than 1,000 rockets and drones at Israel since March 2, in a clear message that it still possesses attack capabilities. Israel is also facing stiff resistance in the hilltop towns of southern Lebanon, particularly in Khiam, a high plateau overlooking the Hula Valley in the south. While Israel seeks to push Hezbollah out militarily, an approach it tried several times in the past and failed, Hezbollah, though weakened by regional developments, is resisting with asymmetrical tactics. It is the Lebanese people who are caught in the middle.

Published – March 22, 2026 03:26 am IST

Beirut:

At least two people were killed on Monday in Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon, Lebanese authorities said, as a ceasefire ending more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah appeared increasingly fragile.

The truce, which came into effect early on Nov. 27, stipulates that Israel will not carry out offensive military operations against civilian, military or other state targets in Lebanon, while Lebanon will prevent any armed groups, including Hezbollah, from carrying out operations against Israel.

Lebanon and Israel have already traded accusations of breaches, and on Monday Lebanon said the violations had turned deadly.

One person was killed in an Israeli air attack on the southern Lebanese town of Marjayoun, about 10 km (six miles) from the border with Israel, Lebanon’s health ministry said.

Lebanon’s state security said an Israeli drone strike had killed a member of its force while he was on duty in Nabatieh, 12 km from the border. State security called it a “flagrant violation” of the truce.

There was no immediate comment from Israeli officials.

Public broadcaster Kan and other Israeli media outlets said on Monday that U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein, who brokered the ceasefire after weeks of shuttle diplomacy, had warned Israel against alleged violations.

The Israeli government did not immediately comment on the reports.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Beirut:

Lebanese group Hezbollah said Wednesday it had achieved “victory” over Israel and that its fighters were at the ready, after a truce between the two sides took effect.

“Victory from God almighty was the ally of the righteous cause,” a statement from the Iran-backed group said, adding that its fighters “will remain in total readiness to deal with the Israeli enemy’s ambitions and its attacks”.

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The ceasefire deal was announced after more than a year of hostilities. (Representational)

Beirut:

Lebanon said Israeli strikes Thursday on the country’s east and south killed 52 people, as raids also hit south Beirut and Hezbollah claimed its deepest attack on Israel in over a year.

More than 11 months of cross-border fire between Israel and Hezbollah over the Gaza conflict escalated into all-out war in September, with Israel conducting an extensive bombing campaign, primarily targeting Hezbollah strongholds, and sending ground troops into southern Lebanon.

“Israeli enemy strikes that targeted the Baalbek district” in east Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley left “40 dead and 52 wounded”, a health ministry statement said, listing tolls for 10 different locations.

Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) said a couple and their four children were killed in a strike on a house in the village of Maqneh, while another couple and their young daughter were among 11 people killed in a raid on nearby Nabha.

The ministry also reported “seven dead and 24 wounded” in “Israeli enemy strikes” on south Lebanon’s Nabatiyeh district, and “five dead and 26 wounded” in strikes elsewhere in south Lebanon.

In Israel, first responders said a man was killed after rocket fire from Lebanon hit the Galilee region in the country’s north.

In Beirut’s southern suburbs, the NNA reported at least 12 strikes throughout Thursday, after relative calm while US envoy Amos Hochstein visited earlier this week, seeking to broker an end to the Israel-Hezbollah war.

Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee on social media platform X issued several rounds of evacuation warnings for Beirut’s southern suburbs, as well as areas in and around the southern coastal city of Tyre, but none for east Lebanon.

AFPTV footage showed columns of smoke rising from the southern suburbs, usually a densely populated residential district but now largely emptied.

Khiam 

Adraee said on X that the Israeli military “targeted a weapons depot, a command headquarters and terrorist infrastructure” belonging to Hezbollah in south Beirut.

Amid a series of attack claims, Hezbollah said its fighters targeted “the Hatzor air base” near Israel’s southern city of Ashdod, around 150 kilometres (90 miles) from Lebanon’s southern border, “with a missile salvo” — its deepest target in more than a year of hostilities.

In 10 separate statements, Iran-backed Hezbollah said its fighters also targeted Israeli troops in and near the south Lebanon town of Khiam, including with artillery, rockets and drones.

The NNA said “the enemy army” was “blowing up homes and residential buildings during its incursion into the town”.

Lebanon’s official news agency and Hezbollah have reported fighting and air strikes in the Khiam area ever since Israeli ground troops first entered Lebanon on September 30.

Earlier Thursday, United Nations special coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert visited Baalbek’s UNESCO-listed archaeological area, after the UN’s cultural body this week granted more than 30 heritage sites in Lebanon “provisional enhanced protection” amid the war.

Lebanon’s health ministry said Thursday that at least 3,583 people had been killed in the violence since October 2023. Most of the deaths have been since September this year.

The Israeli military said Wednesday that three soldiers were killed in south Lebanon, bringing to 52 the number killed in Lebanon since the start of ground operations.

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Beirut:

The batteries inside the weaponised pagers that arrived in Lebanon at the start of the year, part of an Israeli plot to decimate Hezbollah, had powerfully deceptive features and an Achilles’ heel.

The agents who built the pagers designed a battery that concealed a small but potent charge of plastic explosive and a novel detonator that was invisible to X-ray, according to a Lebanese source with first-hand knowledge of the pagers, and teardown photos of the battery pack seen by Reuters.

To overcome the weakness – the absence of a plausible backstory for the bulky new product – they created fake online stores, pages and posts that could deceive Hezbollah due diligence, a Reuters review of web archives shows.

The stealthy design of the pager bomb and the battery’s carefully constructed cover story, both described here for the first time, shed light on the execution of a years-long operation which has struck unprecedented blows against Israel’s Iran-backed Lebanese foe and pushed the Middle East closer to a regional war.

A thin, square sheet with six grams of white pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) plastic explosive was squeezed between two rectangular battery cells, according to the Lebanese source and photos.

The remaining space between the battery cells could not be seen in the photos but was occupied by a strip of highly flammable material that acted as the detonator, the source said.

This three-layer sandwich was inserted in a black plastic sleeve, and encapsulated in a metal casing roughly the size of a match box, the photos showed.

The assembly was unusual because it did not rely on a standard miniaturised detonator, typically a metallic cylinder, the source and two bomb experts said. All three spoke on conditions of anonymity.

Without any metal components, the material used to trigger detonation had an edge: like the plastic explosives, it was not detected by X-ray.

Upon receiving the pagers in February, Hezbollah looked for the presence of explosives, two people familiar with the matter said, putting them through airport security scanners to see if they triggered alarms. Nothing suspicious was reported.

The devices were likely set up to generate a spark within the battery pack, enough to light the detonating material, and trigger the sheet of PETN to explode, said the two bomb experts, to whom Reuters showed the pager-bomb design.

Since explosives and wrapping took about a third of the volume, the battery pack carried a fraction of the power consistent with its 35 gram weight, two battery experts said.

“There is a significant amount of unaccounted for mass,” said Paul Christensen, an expert in lithium batteries at Britain’s Newcastle University.

At some point, Hezbollah noticed the battery was draining faster than expected, the Lebanese source said. However, the issue did not appear to raise major security concerns – the group was still handing its members the pagers hours before the attack.

On September 17, thousands of pagers simultaneously exploded in the southern suburbs of Beirut and other Hezbollah strongholds, in most cases after the devices beeped, indicating an incoming message.

Among the victims rushed to hospital, many had eye injuries, missing fingers or gaping holes in their abdomens, indicating their proximity to the devices at the time of detonation, Reuters witnesses saw. In total, the pager attack, and a second on the following day that activated weaponized walkie-talkies, killed 39 people and wounded more than 3,400.

Two Western security sources said Israeli intelligence agency Mossad spearheaded the pager and walkie-talkie attacks.

Reuters could not establish where the devices were manufactured. The office of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which has authority over Mossad, did not respond to a request for comment.

Lebanon’s Information Ministry and a spokesperson for Hezbollah declined to comment for this article.

Israel has neither denied nor confirmed a role. The day after the attacks Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant praised Mossad’s “very impressive” results in comments that were widely interpreted in Israel as a tacit acknowledgement of the agency’s participation.

US officials have said they were not informed of the operation in advance.

THE WEAK LINK

From the outside, the pager’s power source looked like a standard lithium-ion battery pack used in thousands of consumer electronics goods.

And yet, the battery, labelled LI-BT783, had a problem: Like the pager, it did not exist on the market.

So Israel’s agents created a backstory from scratch.

Hezbollah has serious procurement procedures to check what they buy, a former Israeli intelligence officer, who was not involved in the pager operation, told Reuters.

“You want to make sure that if they look, they find something,” the former spy said, requesting not to be named. “Not finding anything is not good.”

Creating backstories, or “legends”, for undercover agents has long been a core skill of spy agencies. What made the pager plot unusual is that those skills appear to have been applied to ubiquitous consumer electronics products.

For the pagers, the agents deceived Hezbollah by selling the custom-created model, AR-924, under an existing, renowned Taiwanese brand, Gold Apollo.

Gold Apollo’s chairman, Hsu Ching-kuang, told reporters a day after the pager attack that he was approached about three years ago by a former employee, Teresa Wu, and her “big boss, called Tom” to discuss a licence agreement.

Hsu said he had scant information about Wu’s superior, but he granted them the right to design their own products and market them under the widely distributed Gold Apollo brand.

Reuters could not establish the identity of the manager, nor whether the person or Wu knowingly worked with Israeli intelligence.

The chairman said he was not impressed by the AR-924 when he saw it, but still added photos and a description of the product to his company’s website, helping give it both visibility and credibility. There was no way to directly buy the AR-924 from his website.

Hsu said he knew nothing about the pagers’ lethal capabilities or the broader operation to attack Hezbollah. He described his company as a victim of the plot.

Gold Apollo declined to provide further comment. Calls and messages sent to Wu went unanswered. She has not given a statement to the media since the attacks.

“I KNOW THIS PRODUCT”

In September 2023, webpages and images featuring the AR-924 and its battery were added to apollosystemshk.com, a website that said it had a licence to distribute Gold Apollo products, as well as the rugged pager and its bulky power source, according to a Reuters review of internet records and metadata.

The website gave an address in Hong Kong for a company called Apollo Systems HK. No company by that name exists at the address or in Hong Kong Corporate records.

However, the website was listed by Wu, the Taiwanese businesswoman, on her Facebook page as well as in public incorporation records when she registered a company called Apollo Systems in Taipei earlier this year.

A section of the apollosystemshk.com site devoted to the LI-BT783 put emphasis on the battery’s outstanding performance. Unlike the disposable batteries that powered older generation pagers, it boasted 85 days of autonomy and could be recharged via a USB cable, according to the website and a 90-second promotional video on YouTube.

In late 2023, two battery stores came online with the LI-BT783 listed in their catalogues, Reuters found. And in two online forums devoted to batteries, participants discussed the power source, despite its lack of commercial availability: “I know this product,” a user with the handle Mikevog wrote in April 2023. “It’s got a great datasheet and a great performance.”

Reuters could not establish the identity of Mikevog.

The website, the online stores, and the forum discussions bear the hallmark of a deception effort, the former Israeli intelligence officer and two Western security officers told Reuters. The websites have been scrubbed from the web since the pager bombs devastated Lebanon, but archived and cached copies are still viewable.

Ruing the day they bought the pagers, Hezbollah leaders said they had launched internal investigations to understand how the security breach could happen and identify possible moles.

The group had shifted to pagers at the start of the year after realising that cellphone communications were compromised by Israeli eavesdropping, Reuters previously reported.

Hezbollah’s investigations have helped uncover how Israeli agents used an aggressive sales tactic to make sure Hezbollah’s procurement manager chose the AR-924, one of the people familiar with the matter said.

The salesperson who conveyed the offer made a very inexpensive proposition for the pagers, “and kept bringing the price down until he was pulled in,” the person said.

Lebanese authorities have condemned the attacks as a serious violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty. On September 19, in his last public speech before he was killed by Israel, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said the device blasts could amount to a “declaration of war” and vowed to punish Israel.

Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging fire since October 8, 2023, when the operator group began launching rockets at Israeli military positions in solidarity with its Palestinian ally Hamas.

In the wake of the device attacks, Israel has launched a full-on war on Hezbollah, including a ground invasion of southern Lebanon and airstrikes that have killed most of its top leadership.

Hezbollah’s internal investigation into the pager attack, still underway, suffered a setback on September 28: Eleven days after the devices exploded, the senior Hezbollah official tasked with leading the procurement probe, Nabil Kaouk, was himself killed by an Israeli airstrike.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

The Israeli military said around 50 projectiles were fired from Lebanon.

Jerusalem:

Israel expanded its targets in its war with the Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon on Monday, killing at least 18 people in its first strike on the Christian-majority town of Aitou in the north, the Lebanese Red Cross said.

So far the main focus of Israel’s military operations in Lebanon has been in the south, the eastern Bekaa Valley and the suburbs of Beirut.

The strike in the northern region hit a house that had been rented to displaced families, Aitou Mayor Joseph Trad told Reuters. In addition to the deaths, four people were injured, the Red Cross said.

Israel on Monday ordered residents of 25 villages to evacuate to areas north of the Awali River, which flows through southern Lebanon, as it intensifies its attacks in the region.

An Israeli strike killed Muhammad Kamel Naim, the commander of the anti-tank missile unit of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, in the Nabatieh area of south Lebanon, the military said.

Hezbollah has not immediately commented.

The operations come amidst high tensions between Israel and the UN peacekeeping force UNIFIL in south Lebanon, with Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen on Monday repeating a call by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the UN troops to leave.

Israel and the United Nations have been trading accusations over the peacekeepers in south Lebanon, as Israel keeps pushing its forces through the area in an attempt to wipe out Iran-backed Hezbollah and its military infrastructure while it battles Hamas in Gaza.

The UN said Israeli tanks had burst into its base on Sunday, the latest allegations of Israeli violations against peacekeeping forces, that have been condemned by Hezbollah and by Israel’s allies.

Israel disputed the UN account and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for the peacekeepers to withdraw, saying they were providing “human shields” for Hezbollah during an upsurge in hostilities.

Hezbollah denies it uses the proximity of peacekeepers for protection.

The Middle East, meanwhile, remains on high alert for Israel to retaliate against Iran for an October 1 barrage of long-range missiles launched in response to Israel’s assaults on Lebanon.

The Pentagon said on Sunday it would send US troops to Israel along with an advanced US anti-missile system, as Israel weighs its expected retaliation against Iran.

The Israeli military took foreign journalists into southern Lebanon on Sunday and showed them a Hezbollah tunnel shaft that was less than 200 metres away (650 feet) from a UNIFIL position, as well as weapon stashes that the troops found.

Brigadier General Yiftach Norkin said the tunnels were built a few years ago.

“We are actually standing in a military base of Hezbollah very close to the UN,” Norkin said, pointing to the shaft’s trap door in an area covered by undergrowth and overlooked by a UN observation post.

Since announcing its ground operation near the border, the Israeli military says that it has destroyed dozens of Hezbollah tunnel shafts, rocket launchers and command posts.

“We found several days ago a huge quantity of weapons originally coming from Iran and Russia. Brand new,” said Colonel Olivier Rafowicz. “They were prepared for attacking us and (launching) a large invasion into the north of Israel,” Rafowicz said, showing the journalists crates of weapons.

Reuters could not immediately verify these claims.

EXTENSIVE TUNNEL NETWORK

Hezbollah possesses an extensive tunnel network in southern Lebanon, both the group and Israel say. Israel estimates they extend for hundreds of kilometres. A Hezbollah field commander told Reuters last week that the tunnels “are the foundation of the battle.” Hezbollah has not immediately commented.

UNIFIL has said previous Israeli attacks on a watchtower, cameras, communications equipment and lighting had limited its monitoring abilities. UN sources say they fear any violations of international law in the conflict will be impossible to monitor.

The European Union’s member states have taken too long to condemn Israel’s attacks on UNIFIL soldiers in Lebanon, the European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Monday, describing the attacks as “completely unacceptable”.

EU countries, led by Italy, France and Spain, have thousands of troops in the 10,000-strong peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, which has said it has repeatedly come under attack from Israeli forces in recent days

On Monday, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez urged European Union members to respond to a request by Madrid and Ireland to suspend the bloc’s free trade agreement with Israel over its attacks in Lebanon and Gaza.

The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah resumed a year ago when the operator group began firing rockets at Israeli positions in support of Hamas at the start of the Gaza war and has sharply escalated in recent weeks.

Israel says its operations in Lebanon are aimed at securing the return of tens of thousands of its residents displaced from their homes in northern Israel.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Washington:

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken voiced hope Friday for a diplomatic solution in Lebanon and preventing a broader conflict, as he backed efforts by the fragile state to assert itself against Hezbollah.

Blinken again said that Israel, which has been carrying out deadly strikes on Lebanon, “has a right to defend itself” against Hezbollah, but said he was alarmed by the worsening humanitarian situation.

“We continue to engage intensely to prevent broader conflict in the region,” Blinken told reporters after an East Asia Summit in Laos.

“We all have a strong interest in trying to help create an environment in which people can go back to their homes, their safety and security, kids can go back to school,” he said.

“So Israel has a clear and very legitimate interest in doing that. The people of Lebanon want the same thing. We believe that the best way to get there is through a diplomatic understanding, one that we’ve been working on for some time, and one that we focus on right now.”

Later in the day Blinken spoke by phone with Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati and parliament speaker Nabih Berri, according to a statement from the US State Department.

Lebanon’s presidency has been vacant for two years, and Blinken stressed the “the need to empower leadership that reflects the will of the people for a stable, prosperous, and independent Lebanon”.

He said that “Lebanon cannot allow Iran or Hezbollah to stand in the way of Lebanon’s security and stability”.

The statement did not mention discussions on a possible ceasefire between Israel and the Iran-backed group.

After a year of cross-border fire with Hamas ally Hezbollah over the Gaza war, Israel has expanded its operations in Lebanon.

Blinken said the United States would work to support the fragile Lebanese state to build itself up after Hezbollah’s long-held sway.

“It’s clear that the people of Lebanon have an interest — a strong interest — in the state asserting itself and taking responsibility for the country and its future,” he said.

He also said that the United States was voicing concern directly to Israel on the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

“I have real concern about the inadequacy of the assistance that’s getting to them,” Blinken said, adding that the United States has been “very directly engaged with Israel” on the topic.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday issued a stark warning to Lebanon, claiming the country could face a similar fate to Gaza if it continues to allow Hezbollah to operate within its borders. His statement came as the Israeli military intensified its offensive against Hezbollah along Lebanon’s southern coastline, deploying additional troops and advising civilians to evacuate the region.

In a direct video address to the Lebanese people, Netanyahu urged them to free their country from Hezbollah’s grip to avoid further destruction. “You have an opportunity to save Lebanon before it falls into the abyss of a long war that will lead to destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza,” he said. The warning was clear: unless Hezbollah is dealt with, Lebanon risks enduring the same fate as Gaza, which has seen widespread devastation due to ongoing conflict.

“I say to you, the people of Lebanon: Free your country from Hezbollah so that this war can end,” Netanyahu said. 

لديكم فرصة لإنقاذ لبنان قبل أن يقع في هاوية حرب طويلة من شأنها أن تؤدي إلى الدمار والمعاناة كما نراه في غزة. pic.twitter.com/sLcxXvSh7X

— Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) October 8, 2024

Hezbollah Fires Back

The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah escalated after the group claimed responsibility for firing rockets at the Israeli port city of Haifa. This attack came after the Israeli military reported that 85 projectiles had crossed the border from Lebanon into Israel. Hezbollah, which has shown no signs of letting up, threatened to continue firing on Israeli cities and towns if Israeli strikes on Lebanese population centres persisted.

The conflict has been simmering since October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched a devastating attack on Israel, killing over a thousand civilians. Since then, Hezbollah, a key ally of Hamas, has engaged in sporadic exchanges of fire with Israeli forces. Israel, meanwhile, has vowed to secure its northern border and protect its citizens from Hezbollah’s rocket attacks.

Hezbollah’s Leadership in Crisis

Hezbollah’s leadership has faced major setbacks in recent weeks. In late September, Israel killed its leader Hassan Nasrallah in an airstrike on Beirut. Nasrallah had led Hezbollah since 1992 and was widely considered one of the most powerful figures in Lebanon. His death marked a blow to the group, but Israeli strikes did not stop there. In October, Israel launched another bombing campaign in Beirut, targeting Hashem Safieddine, a senior Hezbollah figure widely believed to be Nasrallah’s successor.

While Hezbollah has not confirmed Safieddine’s death, Netanyahu seemed to suggest in his video address that both Nasrallah and Safieddine had been killed. 

Netanyahu in his address said Israel has “degraded Hezbollah’s capabilities; we took out thousands of terrorists, including [longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah himself, and Nasrallah’s replacement, and his replacement’s replacement.”

“We struck Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters in Beirut… this is the headquarters of the head of the intelligence division, Abu Abdullah Mortada,” IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said. “With him, we know that Hashem Safieddine was there. The results of this strike are still being looked into, Hezbollah is trying to hide the details. When we know, we will update the public.”

Israel’s Strategy

Having already targeted strongholds in southern and eastern Lebanon, Israel’s latest moves signal a shift towards the coastal areas, with civilians being urged to evacuate. On its Telegram channel, the Israeli military confirmed that the 146th Division had begun “localised, targeted operational activities” in southwestern Lebanon, directly aimed at Hezbollah infrastructure.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have not spared Beirut, with strikes targeting Hezbollah’s stronghold in the southern suburbs of the city. This area is a key base of operations for Hezbollah. Israel has since dismantled Hezbollah tunnels leading into Israeli territory.

Hezbollah Remains Defiant

Despite these losses, Hezbollah remains defiant. Its deputy leader Naim Qassem declared that the group’s military capabilities were intact and that they were prepared for a protracted conflict. Qassem’s statement came even as Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant described Hezbollah as a “broken organisation,” whose leadership had been decimated following the elimination of Nasrallah.

Gallant said the impact of Israel’s strikes, claiming that Hezbollah’s command structure was in disarray and that the group lacked leadership following the death of Nasrallah and other key figures. He also described Hezbollah’s firepower capabilities as significantly diminished, thanks to Israel’s focused military campaign. However, Hezbollah continues to maintain its presence along the Lebanese border.

The Shadow of Iran

This conflict is not limited to Israel and Hezbollah. The group is widely believed to be backed by Iran, which supplies it with weapons, funding, and political support. Israeli forces have clashed with Iran-backed militias across the region, including in Syria and Yemen. Just this week, an Israeli airstrike in Damascus targeted a building used by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah, killing seven civilians, according to Syrian government reports.

Israel has also accused Hezbollah of using civilian areas as shields for their military operations, a tactic that has drawn widespread condemnation. Hezbollah, in turn, has pointed to the heavy civilian toll in Gaza as evidence of Israel’s indiscriminate use of force. The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is dire, with nearly all of its 2.4 million residents displaced at least once due to the ongoing Israeli bombardment.

Tehran has long been a key backer of Hezbollah. In recent weeks, however, there have been reports that Iran may be seeking a ceasefire in Lebanon, possibly as a result of Hezbollah’s mounting losses.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi visited Beirut on Friday, voicing support for a ceasefire, but insisted that any agreement would have to be backed by Hezbollah.