Far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said on Friday (June 19, 2026) that “all of Lebanon must burn” after Israel’s military announced the deaths of four soldiers there.

The Israeli losses were the first to be announced since a U.S.-Iran deal was signed to end the West Asia war.

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The agreement was also supposed to halt the fighting between Israel and Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Washington has expressed frustration at Israel’s ongoing campaign there.

“With all due respect to the Americans, Israel must make it clear to the entire world that the blood of our sons and the security of our citizens are not up for bargaining. All of Lebanon must burn,” Mr. Ben Gvir said in a statement.

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“For every tear shed by an Israeli mother, a thousand Lebanese mothers must weep,” he added. “In the Near East, you don’t win with measured responses and restraint.”

Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Israel must “go wild. Eradicate. Defeat terrorism.” “We must let fire speak… and open the gates of hell,” he added, without explicitly mentioning Lebanon.

The U.S.-Iran agreement has been widely perceived in Israel as detrimental to its interests, signalling a failure by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to force U.S. President Donald Trump to take account of Israeli security demands.

Mr. Netanyahu is under pressure ahead of elections due to be held by the end of October.

According to a poll published on Friday (June 19) by the newspaper Maariv, 63% of Israelis are “worried” about the future of Israel following the deal.

Avigdor Lieberman, head of the nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu Opposition party, called on Friday for a “heavy price” to be exacted in Lebanon “from which the other side will never recover”.

If Beirut’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, “are still standing, this is a direct failure of the prime minister and the defence minister”, he wrote on X.

Lebanon said 18 people were killed on Friday (June 19, 2026) in Israeli airstrikes in the south, while Israel’s military reported its first soldiers killed there since the sealing of a U.S.-Iran deal to halt the war in West Asia, including in Lebanon.

Israel had said it was striking Hezbollah targets overnight and into the morning, while the Iran-backed militant group said it was attacking Israeli forces around the southern town of Nabatieh.

“The intensive Israeli airstrikes carried out from midnight until this morning have prevented the evacuation of the martyrs and wounded, and have resulted in a preliminary toll of 18 martyrs and 33 wounded” in at least 10 villages and towns, the Lebanese Health Ministry said.

The strikes were the deadliest since Iran and the United States agreed to halt the wider war in West Asia on Monday.

The Israeli military, meanwhile, said Lieutenant Colonel Dor Gedalia Ben Simhon had “fallen in combat” along with three other soldiers it did not immediately identify.

In a separate statement it reported a reserve officer was severely wounded “as a result of an explosive drone impact in southern Lebanon”, with four other soldiers lightly injured in the incident.

Israeli hardliners’s reply to U.S.

The soldiers’ deaths prompted a furious reaction from far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.

“With all due respect to the Americans, Israel must make it clear to the entire world that the blood of our sons and the security of our citizens are not up for bargaining. All of Lebanon must burn,” Ben Gvir said in a statement.

U.S. officials including President Donald Trump have expressed frustration at Israel’s campaign in Lebanon, which it has pursued in spite of the US’s negotiations with Iran, as well as a separate ceasefire agreed in April that was meant to halt the fighting there.

The Israeli military had said in an earlier statement that it was carrying out strikes in response to “repeated violations of the ceasefire” by Hezbollah.

“During the night, the army struck and continues to strike Hezbollah terrorists and infrastructure in several areas in southern Lebanon,” it said.

Hezbollah said early on Friday (June 19) that it had targeted Israeli troops “with a barrage of rockets and mortar shells” near the Ali al-Taher hills, a strategic feature overlooking the town of Nabatieh.

It had also reported attacking Israeli tanks, saying forces “consisting of an armoured platoon and an infantry platoon (tried) to infiltrate towards the northern side of the Ali al-Taher hills”.

“The clashes are still ongoing,” it said.

Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the war in West Asia in early March by attacking Israel to avenge the killing of Iran’s supreme leader at the start of the U.S.-Israeli military campaign.

Israel retaliated with broad strikes across Lebanon and by launching a ground invasion in the south, which borders Israel and has long been under Hezbollah’s sway.

The hostilities have continued despite the U.S.-Iran agreement.

On Thursday (June 18), Hezbollah said it had been fighting Israeli forces attempting to advance from the town of Arnoun towards the outskirts of Kfar Tibnit, also near Nabatieh.

Israeli airstrikes on southern Lebanon killed at least seven people and wounded others on Saturday (May 2, 2026) as hostilities continued between Israel and Hezbollah despite a ceasefire.

The Israeli airstrikes on southern Lebanon on Saturday (May 2) came as Israel’s military issued a new warning for residents of nine southern villages to evacuate.

More than 200,000 people have fled Lebanon for Syria since fighting resumed a month ago between Israeli forces and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, the United Nations’ refugee agency said on Tuesday (March 31, 2026).

Lebanon was pulled into the West Asia conflict in early March when Israeli-U.S. strikes killed Iran’s supreme leader and Tehran-backed Hezbollah responded by firing rockets at Israel.

Since then, Israel has struck targets across Lebanon and sent ground troops into its neighbour’s territory. Lebanese authorities say more than 1,200 people have been killed.

“Nearly a month after hostilities intensified in Lebanon, Syria has seen a sharp rise in people crossing the border from Lebanon,” Aseer al-Madaien, UNHCR’s interim representative in Syria, told a press conference by video link from Damascus.

Between March 2 and 27, “more than 200,000 people entered Syria through the three official crossing points”, she said.

“The vast majority — nearly 180,000 — are Syrians, including Syrian refugees who had fled Syria seeking safety in the past in Lebanon and (are) now forced to flee again,” she added.

“More than 28,000 Lebanese have also crossed into Syria,” she told reporters in Geneva.

The figures were provided by the Syrian authorities and confirmed by UNCHR officials on the ground, she said.

Human Rights Watch on Monday (March 9, 2026) accused Israel of “unlawfully” using white phosphorus over residential parts of a southern Lebanese town last week.

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“The Israeli military unlawfully used artillery-fired white phosphorus munitions over homes on March 3, 2026, in the southern Lebanese town of Yohmor,” the New York-based rights group said in a report.

HRW added that it “verified and geolocated seven images showing airburst white phosphorus munitions being deployed over a residential part of the town and civil defense workers responding to fires in at least two homes and one car in that area”.

White phosphorus, a substance that ignites on contact with oxygen, can be used to create smokescreens and to illuminate battlefields.

But the munition can also be used as an incendiary weapon and can cause fires, horrific burns, respiratory damage, organ failure and death.

Israel — which kept up strikes targeting Hezbollah despite a 2024 ceasefire — launched multiple waves of strikes across Lebanon since last week and sent ground troops into border areas after the Iran-backed group attacked it.

The Israeli army has since repeatedly called on people living south of the Litani River, around 30 kilometres (20 miles) north of the Israeli border, to leave.

At least 394 people have been killed in Israeli attacks, Lebanese authorities said, registering more than half a million people as displaced.

“The Israeli military’s unlawful use of white phosphorus over residential areas is extremely alarming and will have dire consequences for civilians,” Ramzi Kaiss, Lebanon researcher at HRW, was quoted saying in the report.

“Israel should immediately halt this practice and states providing Israel with weapons, including white phosphorus munitions, should immediately suspend military assistance and arms sales and push Israel to stop firing such munitions in residential areas,” he added.

Lebanese authorities and HRW have over the past years accused Israel of using controversial white phosphorus rounds, in attacks authorities say have harmed civilians and the environment.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency on Sunday said Israeli forces targeted the towns of Khiam and Tal Nahas, near the border with Israel, “with artillery and phosphorus shelling”.

Last month, Lebanon accused Israel of spraying the herbicide glyphosate on the Lebanese side of their shared border, with President Joseph Aoun decrying it as a “crime against the environment”.

The ​headquarters of Ghana’s United ‌Nations peacekeeping battalion in ​Lebanon was hit ⁠by missile attacks on Friday (March 6, 2026), leaving two soldiers critically injured, ‌Ghana’s armed forces said in ‌a statement.

Lebanon was ‌pulled ⁠into the war ⁠in the West Asia on Monday (March 2, 2026), when Hezbollah fired rockets ​at Israel ‌that ignited a new Israeli offensive against the group.

Ghanaian soldiers are ‌deployed as part ​of the UNIFIL mission in Lebanon.

The statement ⁠from Ghana’s armed forces did not say ‌who fired the missiles, but it said Ghana’s Foreign Ministry had protested the incident at U.N. headquarters in ‌New York.

In addition to ​the two critically injured soldiers, the statement ⁠said that another soldier “has ⁠been traumatised” while the officers’ mess facility ‌was hit and burned down.

Israeli jets struck several towns in southern Lebanon on Thursday (November 6, 2025) after urging residents to leave, marking an escalation in their near-daily strikes on the country.

The airstrikes came hours after Hezbollah urged the Lebanese government not to enter negotiations with Israel.

Israeli Arabic spokesperson Avichay Adraee warned residents in Tayba near the border, Tayr Debba located just east of the coastal city of Tyre, and Aita al-Jabal, to flee 500 metres (about 1,600 feet) away from residential buildings they are targeting, which they say has been used by Hezbollah. It later issued another warning for the town of Zawtar al-Sharqiyah, near the city of Nabatieh.

Plan to disarm Hezbollah

The Israeli military said it targeted military infrastructure for Hezbollah in those areas. It accused the group of rebuilding its capabilities almost a year after a U.S.-brokered ceasefire went into effect that ended a monthslong war. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

“We will not allow Hezbollah to rearm themselves, to recover, build back up its strength to threaten the state of Israel,” Israeli government spokesperson Shosh Bedrosian said at a briefing on Thursday.

The strikes came as Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and his government met in Beirut to follow up on a plan to disarm Hezbollah and other non-state armed groups in the country drafted by the Lebanese military.

Israel’s strikes and ongoing occupation in Lebanon

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun has been critical of Israel’s strikes and ongoing occupation of five hill-top points on Lebanese territory but has said he is open to negotiations with Israel to end the tensions.

Israel says its near-daily strikes have targeted Hezbollah officials and military infrastructure, while the Lebanese government that has backed disarming Hezbollah say the strikes have targeted civilians and infrastructure unrelated to the Iran-backed group.

The powerful group’s military capabilities were severely damaged in Israel’s intense air campaign over the tiny country in 2024, but Hezbollah have yet to disarm and its leader Sheikh Naim Kassim has said that the group will be ready to fight no matter how limited their capabilities might be.

Both sides have accused each other of violating the ceasefire, which nominally ended the latest Israel-Hezbollah war last November. The conflict started after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.

Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel in support of Hamas and the Palestinians, prompting Israeli airstrikes and artillery shelling in return. The low-level exchanges escalated into full-scale war in September 2024.

Lebanon’s health ministry has reported more than 270 people killed and around 850 wounded by Israeli military actions since the ceasefire took effect. As of Oct. 9, the UN human rights office had verified that 107 of those killed were civilians or noncombatants, said spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan.

No Israelis have been killed by fire from Lebanon since the ceasefire. Hezbollah has claimed one attack since the agreement took effect.