A man speaks on a mobile phone while standing near a destroyed building at a neighbourhood in Beirut’s southern suburbs on June 2, 2026.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Israeli troops entered a southern Lebanese village early on Friday (May 29, 2026), pushing deeper into the country as Lebanese and Israeli military officials held direct talks at the Pentagon over the deadly conflict.

The entrance of Israel’s troops into the village of Dibbine, near the town of Marjayoun, came as Israeli airstrikes killed at least six people. Five were killed in an airstrike on the villages of Deir Qanoun al Nahr and Abbasiyeh, while a municipal policeman was killed in the village of Ebba, state media reported.

Also read: West Asia war updates on May 30, 2026

In Washington, a six-member Lebanese military delegation met on Friday (May 29, 2026) with Israeli military officials in the first direct military talks between the two countries in decades.

The Pentagon, in a statement released late on Friday (May 29, 2026), said the talks were “productive” but stopped short of noting any accomplishments or achievements. It said the talks “focused on building practical frameworks for regional security and stability” and the “tangible outcomes” from their discussions will directly inform the negotiations with political leaders being conducted by the State Department next week.

Talks between senior officials from Israel and Lebanon have been going on since last month but are complicated by the fact that Hezbollah, Israel’s target, is not participating in the discussions and has refused to accept their results.

A nominal ceasefire went into effect on April 17. A senior Lebanese military official told The Associated Press earlier on Friday (May 29, 2026) that the Lebanese delegation, led by the army’s head of operations Brigadier General George Rizkallah, would aim to make it comprehensive.

The official added the Lebanese delegation will request the reactivation of the committee monitoring the enforcement of an earlier US-brokered ceasefire that halted the war between Israel and Hezbollah in late 2024.

Another Lebanese official, who was briefed throughout the day about the talks at the Pentagon, also said the delegation would seek the comprehensive implementation of the ceasefire and a stop to ongoing hostilities.

He said implementation would be followed by talks at a later date on matters, such as deploying the Lebanese army along the border and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon.

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media about the ongoing talks in Washington.

President Joseph Aoun’s office said he received a call on Friday (May 29, 2026) from U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and they discussed the situation in Lebanon and the latest developments in the Middle East. Aoun’s office said the president told Rubio that efforts should concentrate on implementing the ceasefire, as it is “the essential entry point for transitioning to any other issues”.

In April, Lebanon and Israel held the first direct talks in Washington in more than three decades.

The Israeli military issued several evacuation warnings for southern Lebanon on Friday (May 29, 2026), forcing hundreds of families to flee to safer areas further north.

Israeli troops fought Hezbollah fighters inside the villages of Yohmor and Zawtar al-Sahrqieh near the city of Nabatieh after they crossed the strategic Litani river, which the Israeli military has used as a de facto boundary. Large areas to the south are under Israeli military control, despite the April ceasefire.

Hezbollah, whose members have been fighting Israeli troops for days in the area, said in statements that its members struck Israeli troops inside Yohmor.

The two villages are close to the Crusader-built Beaufort castle that is about 15 kilometres (nine miles) from the Israeli border and overlooks wide parts of southern Lebanon. It was not clear if Israeli troops were trying to capture the castle, which lies north of the Litani.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the northern front on Friday (May 29, 2026), where he spoke to members of the military. “I must tell you that there are very impressive results here. Our forces have crossed the Litani; they have advanced to controlling positions,” he said.

“We are operating in Beirut, in the Bekaa, across the entire width of the front, and we are dealing Hezbollah a crushing blow,” Mr. Netanyahu said, referring to Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley and Beirut’s southern suburbs, where Israel’s air force struck on Thursday (May 28, 2026).

The violence in southern Lebanon came as US and Iranian negotiators reached a tentative agreement on Thursday (May 28, 2026) to extend the ceasefire in the three-month-old war by 60 days and start a new round of talks on Iran’s nuclear programme, according to a U.S. official familiar with the matter.

Iran did not immediately confirm any deal. Vice President J.D. Vance on Thursday evening (May 28, 2026) confirmed there was a tentative agreement but said it was unclear if President Donald Trump would approve it.

Hezbollah legislator Hassan Fadlallah said on Friday (May 29, 2026) that any deal between Iran and the US would stop Israel’s offensive in Lebanon. Officials in Iran, Hezbollah’s main backer, have said that they insist that a deal with Washington would stop the latest Israel-Hezbollah war that started on March 2, when Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel two days after Israel and the U.S. attacked Iran.

The latest Israel-Hezbollah war has left 3,200 people dead in Lebanon and over one million (10 lakh) people displaced.

Published – May 30, 2026 09:03 am IST

Military officers from Lebanon and Israel are set to meet in Washington as Israeli strikes continue amid heightened regional tensions.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

 Israeli airstrikes on Wednesday (May 13, 2026) struck seven vehicles in Lebanon.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Pictures of Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei are displayed inside the Iranian embassy in Beirut, as people attend a gathering to pay tribute to him and to show support for Iran’s new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, in Beirut, Lebanon, April 22, 2026.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

A man uses a broom to sweep broken glass inside a classroom at an elementary school, near a Byzantine church, which was damaged after a barrage of projectiles was launched towards Israel from Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, in Nahariya, northern Israel, on April 10, 2026.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The Lebanese military said on Thursday (January 8, 2026) it had concluded the first phase of its plan to fully deploy across southern Lebanon and disarm non-state groups, notably Hezbollah. Israel said it is encouraging but “far from sufficient.”

The effort to disarm Hezbollah comes after a Washington-brokered ceasefire ended a war between the group and Israel in 2024.

Also Read | Israel strikes south, east Lebanon after evacuation warnings

The military’s statement didn’t name Hezbollah or other armed groups in particular, but it comes before President Joseph Aoun is set to meet with Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and his government to discuss the deployment and disarmament plans.

Both said disarming non-state groups was a priority upon beginning their terms, not long after the ceasefire went into effect.

Lebanon’s top officials have endorsed the military announcement.

A statement by Mr. Aoun’s office ahead of the meeting called on Israel to stop its attacks, withdraw from areas it occupies, and release Lebanese prisoners. He called on friendly countries not to send weapons to Lebanon unless it’s to state institutions — an apparent reference to Iran, which for decades has sent weapons and munitions to Hezbollah.

Speaker Nabih Berri, a key ally of Hezbollah who played a leading role in ceasefire talks, issued a statement saying the people of southern Lebanon are “thirsty for the army’s presence and protection.”

Israel maintains that despite Lebanon’s efforts, Hezbollah is still attempting to rearm itself in southern Lebanon.

“The ceasefire agreement brokered by the United States between Israel and Lebanon states clearly, Hezbollah must be fully disarmed,” a statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office read. “This is imperative for Israel’s security and Lebanon’s future.”

Military says disarmament plan is in an advanced stage’

The text of the ceasefire agreement is vague as to how Hezbollah’s weapons and military facilities north of the Litani river should be treated, saying Lebanese authorities should dismantle unauthorised facilities, starting with the area south of the river.

Hezbollah insists that the agreement only applies south of the Litani, while Israel maintains that it applies to the whole country. The Lebanese government has said it will eventually remove non-state weapons throughout the country.

The Lebanese military has been clearing tunnels, rocket-launching positions, and other structures since its disarmament proposal was approved by the government and went into effect in September.

The government had set a deadline of the end of 2025 to clear the area south of the Litani River of non-state weapons.

“The army confirms that its plan to restrict weapons has entered an advanced stage, after achieving the goals of the first phase effectively and tangibly on the ground,” the military statement read.

“Work in the sector is ongoing until the unexploded ordnance and tunnels are cleared … with the aim of preventing armed groups from irreversibly rebuilding their capabilities,” it said.

Hezbollah did not immediately comment on the Lebanese military’s announcement.

Officials have said the next stage of the disarmament plan is in segments of southern Lebanon between the Litani and the Awali River, which include Lebanon’s port city of Sidon, but they have not set a timeline for that phase.

Israeli strikes continue

Israel still strikes Lebanon near daily and occupies five strategic hilltop points along the border, the only areas south of the Litani where the military said it has yet to control.

Regular meetings have taken place between the Lebanese and the Israelis alongside the United States, France, and the UN peacekeeping forces in southern Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, to monitor developments after the ceasefire.

Lebanon’s cash-strapped military has since been gradually dispersing across wide areas of southern Lebanon between the Litani River and the UN-demarcated “Blue Line” that separates the tiny country from Israel. The military has also been slowly confiscating weapons from armed Palestinian factions in refugee camps.

Israel accuses Hezbollah of trying to rebuild its battered military capacity and has said that the Lebanese military’s efforts are not sufficient, raising fears of a new escalation. Lebanon, meanwhile, said Israel’s strikes and control of the hilltops were an obstacle to the efforts.

Lebanon also hopes that disarming Hezbollah and other non-state groups will help to bring in money needed for reconstruction after the 2024 war.

Hezbollah says it has been cooperative with the army in the south but will not discuss disarming elsewhere before Israel stops its strikes and withdraws from Lebanese territory.

The latest Israel-Hezbollah conflict began the day after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel, which triggered the war in Gaza. The militant group Hezbollah, largely based in southern Lebanon, began firing rockets into Israel in support of Hamas and the Palestinians.

Israel responded with airstrikes and shelling. The low-level conflict escalated into full-scale war in September 2024. Israeli strikes killed much of Hezbollah’s senior leadership and left the group severely weakened.

Hezbollah still has political clout, holding a large number of seats in parliament representing the Shiite Muslim community and two Cabinet Ministers.

Published – January 08, 2026 08:40 pm IST

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.)

An Israeli airstrike killed two Lebanese soldiers and wounded three on Friday (October 11, 2024), Lebanon’s military said, just hours after the Israeli military fired on the headquarters of U.N. peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, injuring two of them for the second day in a row.

The incidents entangling both Lebanon’s official Army — which has largely stayed on the sidelines of the conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah — and the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Lebanon raised alarm as Israel broadens its campaign against Hezbollah with waves of heavy airstrikes across the country and a ground invasion at the border.

In central Beirut, rescue workers combed Friday through the rubble of a collapsed building, searching for survivors of an Israeli airstrike that killed at least 22 people and wounded dozens in the Lebanese capital the night before.

Hezbollah has been firing rockets into Israel over the past year in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza following Hamas’ devastating Oct. 7 attacks on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and resulted in 250 taken hostage.

In return, Israel’s military has pounded Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, killing more than 2,237 Lebanese — including Hezbollah fighters, civilians and medical personnel — according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.

Among them, the Ministry reported late Friday, were a two-year-old and 16-year-old killed by airstrikes in the southern village of Baysarieh.

Hezbollah attacks have killed 29 civilians as well as 39 Israeli soldiers, both in northern Israel since October 2023, and in southern Lebanon since Sept. 30, when Israel launched its ground invasion.

Israel strikes a Lebanese Army checkpoint

On Friday, the Lebanese Army said an Israeli airstrike hit a building near a military checkpoint in the southern Bint Jbeil province.

The Israeli military said it had been targeting Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon when reports emerged that it had hit several Lebanese army soldiers. The Israeli Army said it investigated the incident but remained “unaware of any Lebanese Army facilities found in the area of the strike.”

Lebanon’s Army is not a party to the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah — after Israel launched its ground invasion on Sept. 30, Lebanese soldiers withdrew some 5 kilometres (3 miles) from their observation posts along the border.

The only direct clash between the two national armies occurred on Oct. 3, when Israeli tank fire hit a Lebanese Army post also in the area of Bint Jbeil, killing a soldier and prompting Lebanese soldiers to return fire.

Both Lebanese troops and U.N. peacekeepers are deployed in southern Lebanon to enforce U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 that ended a bloody monthlong 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.

But Lebanon’s Army is no match for Hezbollah, and neither its soldiers nor the peacekeepers have been capable of preventing the Shiite militants from entrenching themselves in the border region. Israel accuses Hezbollah of establishing militant infrastructure along the border in violation of the U.N. resolution.

Israel hits U.N. peacekeepers again, wounding two

The Israeli military opened fire near the U.N. headquarters in Lebanon’s southern town of Naqoura on Friday, the Army said, hitting the observation post and injuring two peacekeepers for the second time in as many days.

An initial review by the Israeli Army found that soldiers in southern Lebanon targeted what they believed to be a threat located some 50 metres (yards) from the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Lebanon but ultimately struck the peacekeepers.

One of the injured peacekeepers was hospitalized in the nearby city of Tyre while the other received medical care on site, the United Nations force, known as UNIFIL, said. Both were identified as Sri Lankan.

The Army repeated its warning that UNIFIL personnel abandon their positions in areas where Hezbollah militants launch rockets into Israel. Following Thursday’s attack, the U.N. peacekeeping chief, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, said 300 peacekeepers in front-line positions on southern Lebanon’s border were temporarily moved to larger bases.

In a statement condemning the strike as “a grave violation of international humanitarian law,” UNIFIL reported that explosions on Friday hit the same place they did the day before, when Israeli tank fire injured two Indonesian peacekeepers, damaged vehicles and a communication system, and drew sharp international criticism.

“Peacekeepers must be protected by all parties of the conflict, and what has happened is obviously condemnable,” said U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

The French Foreign Ministry accused Israel of deliberately firing at peacekeepers and summoned the Israeli ambassador Friday in an official protest.

In a call with his Israeli counterpart, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin stressed the importance of ensuring the safety of UNIFIL forces and urged Israel to “pivot from military operations to a diplomatic pathway as soon as feasible,” the Pentagon said.

When President Joe Biden was questioned by reporters whether he was asking Israel to stop striking U.N. peacekeepers, he replied, “Absolutely, positively.”

UNIFIL, which has more than 10,000 peacekeepers from dozens of countries, was created to oversee the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon after Israel’s 1978 invasion. The U.N. expanded its mission following the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, allowing peacekeepers to patrol a buffer zone set up along the border.

Beirut residents left reeling from Israeli strikes

From the Burj Abi Haidar neighbourhood of central Beirut, civil defence workers dug through concrete and twisted metal from a three-story building brought down by an Israeli airstrike the day before — the deadliest Israeli air raid to hit Beirut over the last year of war.

Thursday’s airstrikes hit two residential buildings in neighbourhoods that have swelled with displaced people fleeing Israeli bombardment elsewhere in Lebanon.

“The world suddenly turned upside down,” recalled Ahmad al-Khatib, a 42-year-old Lebanese postal worker who was with his wife and toddler daughter in his in-laws’ apartment when the bombs fell on the building next-door.

Al-Khatib said he had pulled his 2 ½-year-old, Ayla, out from under the debris of a collapsed bedroom wall. The force of the explosion had flung his wife, Marwa Hamdan, against a wall and a piece of metal hit her in the head. She remains in intensive care, he said, tears running down his cheeks.

Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV channel and Israeli media reported that the strikes aimed to kill Wafiq Safa, a top security official with the group, but he was not in either targeted building at the time of the strike. The Israeli military had no comment on the reports.

Another resident, Mohammed Tarhani, said he had moved in with his brother in Burj Abi Haidar after fleeing southern Lebanon to escape airstrikes in the past weeks.

“Where is one supposed to go now?” he asked.

Hezbollah kept up its rocket fire into Israel Friday, setting off air raid sirens just north of Tel Aviv. Interceptions by Israel’s air defense system scattered rocket fragments in the seaside suburb of Herzliya and sent shrapnel flying into a building there, causing damage but no casualties.

While disrupting life for Israelis, most of Hezbollah’s barrages have not caused casualties. But early Friday, an anti-tank missile fired from Lebanon killed a man from Thailand working on a farm in northern Israel.

Hezbollah’s chief spokesperson vowed the group would expand its attacks into more populated areas deeper inside Israel.

“This is only the beginning,” Mohammed Afif told reporters from a smouldering street left in ruins by recent Israeli airstrikes in Beirut’s southern suburbs. “I tell the enemy that you have only seen the minimum.”