Oil prices rose more than 2% in early trading on Monday (June 1, 2026) after Israel ordered ​troops to move further into Lebanon in the battle with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant ‌group, despite a ceasefire announced more than six weeks ago. U.S. ​crude futures rose $2.17 or 2.48% to $89.53 a barrel as of ⁠1112 GMT. Brent futures rose $1.93 or 2.12% to $93.05 a barrel.

West Asia war: Follow LIVE updates on June 1, 2026

The stepped-up fighting, coming just after the U.S. hosted Israeli-Lebanon peace talks in Washington on Friday (May 29, 2026), ‌dimmed expectations that the U.S. and Iran could soon announce an extension to their ceasefire agreement, which had driven Brent and ‌WTI to settle up 1.8% and 1.7%, respectively, on ‌Friday (May 29, 2026).

The ⁠Israel-Lebanon conflict has been the broadest spillover of the Iran ⁠war. It started on March 2 when Hezbollah began firing rockets and drones across the border into Israel to back its ally Iran.

The two sides reached a ceasefire ​in mid-April but have continued to ‌trade fire.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday that he would soon decide on a proposed deal to extend a ceasefire with Iran announced in early April, giving negotiators more time to seek ‌a permanent end to the conflict and find a solution ​to the underlying dispute over Iran’s nuclear program. Israel would be key to any such deal, and Iran has also ⁠said repeatedly that Hezbollah must be included.

Meanwhile, concerns are rising about mines in key oil and gas shipping lane the Strait of Hormuz, IG ‌analyst Tony Sycamore said in a note. That could slow the process of reopening the strait and mean that relief comes more slowly for the oil market even after it is reopened.

“Even if an agreement is reached, it won’t deliver a flood of supply,” Sycamore said.

An Axios reporter said on X on Friday (May 29, 2026) that Iran had dropped more ‌mines in the strait earlier in the week, shortly after U.S. Defense Secretary ​Pete Hegseth said that attempts to lay more mines would be a violation of the ceasefire.

Hormuz is a conduit ⁠for about a fifth of global oil and gas flows and Iran has ⁠effectively closed it since the conflict began with U.S. and Israeli strikes in February.

Concerns over supply outweighed lacklustre economic ‌data from China over the weekend, which showed stalling factory activity. This added to concerns the world’s second-largest economy is losing momentum, weighed ​down by a contraction in exports and cost pressures.

The Israeli military early on Thursday (May 28, 2026) pounded Lebanon’s fourth-largest city, killing at least 14 people across the south of the country in its ongoing military escalation against the Hezbollah group ahead of crucial talks in Washington.

Among those killed in the flurry of strikes were five women and children and a Lebanese soldier. Dozens of others were wounded, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry and the state-run National News Agency.

An Israeli soldier meanwhile was killed in a Hezbollah drone attack in northern Israel, the Israeli military said.

The intensification comes after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced an expansion in the Israeli military’s attacks in Lebanon, apparently sparked by Hezbollah’s use of fibre-optic exploding drones that have struck Israeli troops in Lebanon and reached some of Israel’s northern border towns.

Security talks between Lebanese and Israeli military

Lebanese and Israeli military officials are set to hold their first security talks on Friday (May 29, 2026) in the U.S. capital. The talks have extended a nominal ceasefire that went into effect April 17, although the attacks have since intensified, while sparing the Lebanese capital Beirut.

Hezbollah has dismissed the talks and instead endorsed its key ally Iran, which has made ending the war in Lebanon a condition for its own talks with Washington brokered by Pakistan.

Before the attacks on Thursday (May 28), Israeli military Arabic spokesperson Avichay Adraee issued warnings to eight buildings in the coastal city of Tyre along the Mediterranean and surrounding neighborhoods. Many people have fled the area.

Journalist killed

Further north in the city of Sidon, an Israeli drone struck an apartment building where some displaced families lived, killing five people and wounding 21 others, among them five children. Among the killed was Hossan Zeidan who once was a correspondent for Iran’s Arabic-language al-Aalam television.

Mohammad Al-Gharbi, who lived across the street from the building in Sidon, woke to the sound of the explosion.

“I was in my room when part of the wall and shattered glass fell on me, and everything was thrown into chaos,” he said. “This building that was hit had six apartments occupied by poor families who had fled from the south to escape the attacks there, only to be hit here.” In the nearby coastal town of Adloun, an Israeli drone struck a car with a family that was fleeing, killing six people, of which four were two children and their parents, the Lebanese Health Ministry said. Another drone strike that came without warning killed two people on a motorcycle near Tyre. The target of the attack was not immediately clear, NNA reported.

Elsewhere near the city of Nabatiyeh, the Lebanese military said a soldier was killed in an Israeli drone strike while he was driving his motorcycle.

The Israeli military said on Thursday that a soldier in northern Israel was killed in a Hezbollah drone attack and two reservists were wounded.

Hezbollah has claimed dozens of drone and rocket attacks that it says targeted Israeli troops in southern Lebanon and northern Israel. The group said on Thursday it has launched several attacks on Israeli troops and tanks that have crossed the Litani River into the town of Zawtar al-Sharqieh near Nabatiyeh, as close-range fighting continues.

Over 1 million people in Lebanon have been displaced by the war between Israel and Hezbollah, which was sparked when Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel on March 2 in solidarity with Iran, two days after the Iran war began.

At least 3,269 people have been killed in Israeli strikes since the start of the war, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry, with over 9,800 wounded.

According to Mr. Netanyahu’s office, at least 23 Israeli soldiers and a defense contractor have been killed in or near southern Lebanon and two civilians have been killed in northern Israel, the vast majority by drones.

Hezbollah condemned on Monday (March 2, 2026) the Lebanese government’s decision to ban its military activities, while Israel carried out retaliatory strikes in response to rockets fired by the Iran-backed group.

In a statement, Mohammed Raad, the head of the group’s Parliamentary bloc, condemned Beirut’s “swaggering decisions”, saying that “the Lebanese were expecting a decision rejecting the (Israeli) aggression”.

Banning of Hezbollah’s military and security activity

Lebanon’s government on Monday (March 2, 2026) took the unprecedented step of banning Hezbollah’s military and security activity, prompting the Iran-backed group to lash out at the decision.

Hezbollah is represented in both the government and Parliament, and the move came hours after it announced it had launched rockets and drones towards Israel early on Monday to avenge the killing of Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei in U.S.-Israeli attacks.

Israel began bombarding Beirut’s southern suburbs and dozens of villages in south Lebanon, vowing to make the group pay a “heavy price”.

Israeli attack on Lebanon

The strikes killed at least 52 people and wounded at least 154, according to the Lebanese government.

The Israeli military later said it had “completed a broad wave of strikes on Hezbollah terrorist organisation targets in southern Lebanon”.

“As part of the strikes, more than 70 weapons storage facilities, launch sites, and missile launchers” were hit, it said.

Following an emergency cabinet meeting earlier Monday (March 2, 2026), Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said: “The Lebanese state declares its absolute and unequivocal rejection of any military or security actions launched from Lebanese territory outside the framework of its legitimate institutions.

“This necessitates the immediate prohibition of all of Hezbollah’s security and military activities, considering them to be outside the law, and obliging it to hand over its weapons”.

Mr. Salam had ordered the military and security agencies to take “immediate measures” to implement the cabinet decision and prevent “any military operation or the launching of missiles or drones from Lebanese territory”.

Arrest order

Justice Minister Adel Nassar announced in a post on X that the judicial authorities had tasked “security agencies with immediately arresting those who launched the rockets and their instigators”.

A source close to the Lebanese government reported that two Ministers from the Amal Movement, Hezbollah’s fellow Shiite party and a key ally, and one Minister from the group itself had approved the cabinet’s decision.

The Israeli military launched strikes on southern and eastern Lebanon on Monday (January 5, 2026), Lebanese state media reported, after warning it would hit what it called Hezbollah and Hamas targets in four villages.

It was the first such warning issued by the Israeli military this year, as Israel continues to strike targets in Lebanon despite a ceasefire with Hezbollah.

An AFP photographer in Kfar Hatta, one of the targeted villages in south Lebanon, saw dozens of families flee the village after the warning was issued, amid drone activity in the area, adding that ambulances and fire trucks were on standby.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported strikes on the four villages.

According to the NNA, the strike on Al-Manara in eastern Lebanon caused “the complete destruction of a house and serious damage to surrounding houses, cars and commercial establishments”.

The Israeli military said in a statement it “began striking Hezbollah and Hamas terror targets in Lebanon”.

In two separate posts on X, the military’s Arabic-language spokesman, Colonel Avichay Adraee, said the villages were Kfar Hatta and Annan in south Lebanon, and Al-Manara and Ain al-Tineh in eastern Lebanon.

Colonel Adraee said the military would hit Hezbollah sites in Kfar Hatta and Ain al-Tinah, and Hamas sites in Annan and Al-Manara.

The NNA said the home targeted in Al-Manara belonged to Sharhabil Sayed, a Hamas leader in Lebanon who was killed by Israel in 2024.

Repeated attacks

Despite a year-old ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, Israel carries out regular strikes on Lebanon, usually saying it is bombing Hezbollah sites and operatives, and occasionally Hamas targets.

Two people were killed in an Israeli strike that targeted a vehicle on Sunday (January 4), around 10 kilometres (six miles) from the border, the Lebanese health ministry said.

In November, an Israeli strike on south Lebanon’s Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp killed 13 people.

Israel said it targeted a Hamas compound, with the group rejecting the claim.

It has also hit Hamas’ ally in Lebanon, the Islamist group Jamaa Islamiya, which claimed responsibility for multiple attacks against Israel before the ceasefire.

Under heavy U.S. pressure and fears of expanded Israeli strikes, Beirut has committed to disarming Hezbollah, which was badly weakened after more than a year of hostilities with Israel including two months of open war that ended with the November 2024 ceasefire.

Lebanon’s army was expected to complete the disarmament south of the Litani River — about 30 kilometres from the border with Israel — by the end of 2025, before tackling the rest of the country.

All four of Monday’s targeted villages are located north of the river.

Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar on Sunday (January 3) called the disarmament efforts far from sufficient.

Lebanon’s cabinet is to meet on Thursday to discuss the army’s progress, while the ceasefire monitoring committee — comprising Lebanon, Israel, the United States, France and UN peacekeepers — is also set to meet this week.

At least 350 people have been killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon since the ceasefire, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry reports.

Israel warned on Sunday (November 2, 2025) that its military would step up its attacks against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, a day after the Lebanese Health Ministry reported four people killed in an Israeli air strike.

Despite a November 2024 ceasefire with the Lebanese militant group, Israel maintains troops in five areas in southern Lebanon and has kept up regular strikes.

“Hezbollah is playing with fire, and the president of Lebanon is dragging his feet,” Defence Minister Israel Katz said in a statement.

“The Lebanese government’s commitment to disarm Hezbollah and remove it from southern Lebanon must be implemented. Maximum enforcement will continue and even intensify — we will not allow any threat to the residents of the north.”

Thousands of Israelis living near the northern border with Lebanon were forced to evacuate their homes for months after Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel following the outbreak of the war in Gaza in October 2023.

That set off a more than year-long conflict that culminated in two months of open war before last year’s ceasefire was agreed.

The Iran-backed militant group, which opposes Israel, has been badly weakened by the war but remains armed and financially resilient.

In September 2024, Israel killed the group’s longtime chief, Hassan Nasrallah, along with many other senior leaders over the course of the war.

Since the ceasefire, the United States has increased pressure on Lebanese authorities to disarm the group, a plan opposed by Hezbollah and its allies.

Ceasefire violation by Israel

Israel never stopped carrying out air strikes on Lebanon in spite of the truce — usually saying it is targeting Hezbollah positions — and has stepped up the attacks in recent days.

On Thursday, Israeli ground troops carried out a deadly raid into southern Lebanon, prompting Lebanese President Joseph Aoun to order the army to confront such incursions.

Mr. Aoun had called for talks with Israel in mid-October, after U.S. President Donald Trump helped broker a ceasefire in Gaza.

But Mr. Aoun later accused Israel of responding to his offer by intensifying its air strikes, the latest of which killed four people in Nabatiyeh district on Saturday (November 1), according to the Lebanese health ministry.

The official Lebanese National News Agency reported that the Israeli army hit a car “with a guided missile”.

The Israeli military confirmed the strike, saying it killed a member of Hezbollah’s Radwan Force in southern Lebanon.

“The terrorist was involved in transferring weapons and in efforts to reestablish Hezbollah’s terrorist infrastructure in southern Lebanon,” the military said, adding three other members of the group were also killed.

“The terrorists’ activities constituted a threat to the State of Israel and its civilians, and a violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon.”