Israel said on Thursday (September 10, 2026) it demolished key tunnels built by the Iran-backed Hezbollah group beneath the strategic Ali al-Taher ridge in southern Lebanon, triggering a 4.1 magnitude tremor.

AFP journalists in the area heard several explosions. In a video shared by Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz, a huge fireball can be seen rising into the night sky.

The explosion comes a few days after Israeli authorities claimed to have taken control of the Ali al-Taher ridge, saying that the pro-Iranian Hezbollah had dug numerous tunnels there, allowing it to attack Israel from this mountainous area.

Israeli troops occupy part of southern Lebanon, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he wants to establish a “security zone” to prevent any attacks on the north of his country.

“This is strategic terrorist infrastructure that was built over two decades, with Iranian funding and planning,” Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Katz said in a joint statement.

The destruction “completes the achievement of operational control over the Ali al-Taher ridge — above and below ground”, the statement added.

The United States Geological Survey reported a 4.1 magnitude tremor in the area, after Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported that Israel carried out a “massive explosion” on the Ali al-Taher ridge in the Nabatieh region, “causing tremors and a powerful rumble”.

AFP journalists in south Lebanon also said they heard “huge explosions” on Thursday (September 11) evening.

“We were sitting there and everything shook,” Joelle Fares, who recently moved to Majayoun, told AFP.

The Israeli army said the Hezbollah infrastructure extended for more than two kilometres (1.2 miles) and contained “dozens of Iranian-made rockets, missiles, and UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), as well as machine guns, dozens of anti-tank missiles, and hundreds of mines and explosive devices”.

The underground compound also included a command centre of Hezbollah’s “Badr” unit, the army added.

A military official told AFP that some of the militants that had operated in the area of the ridge had abandoned it, while others were “eliminated by aerial strikes and artillery fire”.

The official said Hezbollah members had dug eight underground routes to move safely beneath the ridge, and several dozen explosive drones and hundreds of mines were seized by the Israeli army.

In March, Hezbollah dragged Lebanon into the Middle East war in support of its backer Iran.

There had been a lull in violence after the understanding reached between Iran and the United States in June, followed by an agreement between Lebanon and Israel.

But strikes have increased in intensity in recent days.

During negotiations, the United States, which sponsored the talks, proposed that the Lebanese army take control of the Ali al-Taher ridge, but Hezbollah refused, a source close to the parties told AFP.

Beirut authorities say Israeli strikes have killed more than 4,300 people in total since March, and Israeli forces continue to occupy a so-called “security zone” in the south.

(This article is part of the View From India newsletter curated by The Hindu’s foreign affairs experts. To get the newsletter in your inbox every Monday, subscribe here.)

After Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack in Israel, in which about 1,200 people were killed, the Jewish nation launched an immediate retaliatory war on Gaza. Its leaders vowed to continue to fight until Hamas was “obliterated”. The war soon spread into Lebanon as Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel-occupied Sheba Farms. In Syria, Israel carried out thousands of air strikes, targeting Syrian troops, Hezbollah positions and Iranian military officers. Hamas was pushed to the southern slice of Gaza. Hezbollah’s leadership, including its charismatic Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, was assassinated. In Syria, the Iran-aligned regime of President Bashar al-Assad collapsed in December 2024. Israel appeared to be winning the mini-regional war it was fighting. Many argued that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was “reshaping the Middle East” (West Asia) by force.

The tactical gains probably pushed Israel to take bigger risks. In June 2025, it started air strikes on Iran aimed at destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities. The U.S. joined the war to carry out a one-off attack on Iranian facilities and then backed off, claiming that its strikes had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear facilities. The war ended in a ceasefire on the 12th day. But the conflict was not over.

On February 28, 2026, the U.S. and Israel launched another war on Iran. This time, they had four clear objectives: destroy Iran’s nuclear programme; dismantle Iran’s missile programme; prevent Iran from supporting its non-state allies such as Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis and Hashad; and bring down regime change in Tehran. Regime change was the central objective as all the other three were linked to it. Six months later, none of these objectives has been met. Not just that. Iran has added a new problem by shutting down the Strait of Hormuz, and cancelled all direct negotiations with the U.S. Israel and the U.S. assassinated Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on February 28, but his son, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, is now in power. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Iran’s powerful, ideologically-rooted paramilitary force, has emerged the most powerful branch of the state during the war. The U.S. is now fighting an economic war with Iran to force Tehran to rejoin talks and discuss the opening of the Hormuz Strait, while the nuclear programme, the core issue, has been pushed away from the ambit of prospective diplomacy. While the U.S. is dealing with Iran, Israel is watching anxiously from the margins.

Israel wanted to reshape West Asia by force. Regional order changes when balance of power and the distribution of power change. West Asia has witnessed changes in recent years, but not according to Israel’s plans. The war against Iran remains inconclusive and the Islamic Republic is far from collapsing. The nuclear issue remains unresolved. Hamas has been set back, but not dismantled. Hezbollah is still fighting from southern Lebanon and Beirut. The Houthis did not just survive but emerged as an influential territorial army in Yemen and a naval force in the Red Sea. In Syria, the Assad regime may have gone, but the al-Shaara regime is an ally of Turkey, which is steadily expanding its influence across the region. Project Abraham Accords, which sought to build a common wall of an Arab-Israel alliance against Iran has collapsed. Israel’s bilateral agreements with Arab countries stay intact, but the expansion of Abraham Accords have hit a stonewall. As violence spreads in the West Bank and Gaza remains under occupation, even Abraham Accords countries have started voicing concerns about Israel’s handling of Palestinians.

We picked Israel as the topic for our latest Global Faultlines podcast because we wanted to take a deep dive into these developments. The simple question we asked in the podcast was whether Israel is winning the many wars it is fighting. Conventional wisdom would argue that Israel’s militarism is helping the country stay powerful in a hostile region. But a deeper strategic look offers mixed answers. You may watch our discussion here: Global Faultlines podcast | Is Israel winning?

A Himalayan tragedy

On the morning of August 26, a catastrophic flash flood tore through villages along the Lende Khola, Bhotekoshi and Trishuli rivers in Nepal, likely triggered by a glacier collapse on Langtang Lirung in the Himalayas. The flood wave moved at roughly 193 km/h in its first stretch, giving downstream communities almost no warning; existing early-warning systems were calibrated for monsoon floods, not this kind of glacial event. The flood destroyed the Gyirong/Rasuwagadhi border checkpoint and swept through settlements along a 72-km stretch of the Bhotekoshi-Trishuli River systems, also damaging areas in Tibet.

As of August 31, Nepal had confirmed at least 903 deaths with over 4,000 people still missing, alongside casualties on the Chinese side; some bodies were carried as far as India. Damage includes 32 destroyed bridges and roughly 25 miles of road. Sanjeev Satgainya, The Hindu’s correspondent in Nepal, has been covering the disaster for our readers. To understand what happened in Nepal and its calamitous impact on the Nepalese society, read Sanjeev’s reports, especially this profile we published on August 30: The Bhotekoshi flood | A Himalayan tragedy.

Israel’s Parliament dissolved early Friday (July 17, 2026) after passing a marathon of Bills in the last moments of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition.

The Knesset, which was scheduled to break for its summer recess on Friday (July 17, 2026), will not reconvene before the elections scheduled on October 27.

The expected dissolution comes as Mr. Netanyahu is struggling to hold onto power ahead of the next elections as Israel grinds toward the third anniversary of the October 7 attack that sparked nearly three years of war. Israeli polls are showing a groundswell of support for opposition parties, led by former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and a popular centrist former military chief.

Over the past week, the Knesset passed several controversial laws in marathon sessions as PM Netanyahu attempted to ram through several of his pet projects.

Earlier this week, the Knesset passed two Bills that effectively halt the enlistment of ultra-Orthodox men in the military in an attempt to ensure ultra-Orthodox parties join Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition in the next government.

The Knesset also recently passed several Bills connected with Mr. Netanyahu’s attempts to overhaul the judiciary, including increasing government control over broadcast media and weakening the role of the attorney general. Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara has opposed the overhaul, and been a frequent target of Mr. Netanyahu and the Israeli right.

“We are completing a four-year term, we passed nine budgets and hundreds of bills, I thank you for the trust you placed in me, through which together we succeeded in maintaining a four-year term,” Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana said as he announced the dissolution.

Completing a full, four-year term is a rare occurrence throughout Israeli history.

The last time Israel’s government fulfilled a full term without breaking for early elections was in 1988. Israel has no term limits, and Mr. Netanyahu has served more terms than any other prime minister in Israel’s history, but it is rare even for him to finish a full, four-year term.

Between 2019 and 2022, Israelis went to the polls five times. Israel holds elections on average every 2.4 years, making it second-lowest ranked country in the OECD for periods between elections, a marker of political instability, according to the Israel Democracy Institute.

A U.S. military delegation met with Lebanon’s army in Beirut to discuss the implementation of Israel’s withdrawal from a “pilot zone” in occupied territory, a Lebanese military official told AFP on Saturday (July 11, 2026).

Under a framework agreement reached on June 26, Israel will gradually withdraw from areas of southern Lebanon where it has deployed troops to fight Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Shia movement.

As part of the agreement, the long-disempowered Lebanese military will take full control of two small areas dubbed pilot zones.

“The American military delegation arrived and began meetings with the Lebanese army command to discuss the mechanisms for implementing the first pilot zone from which the Israelis will withdraw, allowing the Lebanese army to deploy,” the official said, requesting anonymity.

“This is the main objective the American military delegation is bringing to Lebanon… it is the translation and implementation of the framework agreement.”

U.S. ambassador Michel Issa told President Joseph Aoun on Thursday (July 9, 2026) that the American delegation was coming to “determine the mechanism” for the deal’s implementation.

In Washington, a U.S. official had said on condition of anonymity that “the first pilot zone will launch in a matter of days, and further pilot zones are being mapped out and planned”.

U.S. Central Command will coordinate on the zones with both countries, he said.

The agreement — rejected by Hezbollah — does not set a timetable for Israel’s withdrawal, and Israeli officials have also vowed that their forces will remain in a “security zone” 10 kilometres (six miles) deep as long as Hezbollah remains armed.

The war, which began in early March when Hezbollah entered the wider West Asia conflict on the side of its backer Iran, displaced more than a million people in Lebanon, according to the UN’s humanitarian agency OCHA.

On Saturday (July 11, 2026) the agency said more than 732,000 people had now returned home, up from 640,000 a week before.

That leaves more than 430,000 still displaced, it added.

Israel has pursued intermittent strikes despite a truce in its war with Hezbollah, with Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reporting several in the south on Saturday (July 11, 2026).

The latest talks between Lebanon and Israel, which have no formal relations but have met for five rounds of negotiations since the start of the war, will take place in Rome next Wednesday and Thursday.

Lebanon conditions its participation on Israel withdrawing from two pilot zones.

The talks precede Aoun’s expected visit to Washington later this month at the invitation of his American counterpart Donald Trump.

Israeli arms exports have reached an all-time high for the fifth consecutive year, hitting more than $19 billion in 2025, driven by missile, rocket and air defence systems, the Defence Ministry announced Tuesday (June 2, 2026).

Israel is among the world’s leading arms exporters. Its forces have fought on several fronts since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack triggered the war in Gaza, including against armed group Hezbollah in Lebanon and alongside the U.S. against arch-foe Iran.

Also Read: West Asia war updates

“Israel’s all-time defence export record has been broken for the fifth consecutive year, with $19.2 billion in 2025 — a nearly 30% surge compared to the previous year, more than doubling in five years and quadrupling in a decade,” the Defence Ministry statement said.

Missile, rocket and air defence systems were the lead exports and accounted for 29 % of deals, it said, adding that a “notable surge was recorded in observation and optronics systems”.

European countries purchased 36% of exports, while Asia and the Pacific Region bought 32%, and West Asia and North Africa bought 15%.

“There is a clear and unmistakable thread connecting the IDF’s battlefield achievements across all fronts, the extraordinary capabilities of Israel’s defence industries, and the success of Israeli defence exports around the world,” Defence Minister Israel Katz was quoted as saying in the statement.

In April, the Ministry said it planned to accelerate its production of Arrow missile interceptors amid the war with Iran. The announcement came after questions in the international media over how long Israel’s interceptor stocks would last, with some analysts pointing to shortages of top-tier Arrow interceptors in particular.

The Israeli military said early on Tuesday (June 2, 2026) air defences intercepted two projectiles that crossed from Lebanon into northern Israel, hours after U.S. President Donald Trump said fighting would end.

“Following the sirens that sounded at 01:35 (2235 GMT) in several areas in northern Israel, the IAF intercepted two projectiles that crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory,” the military said on Telegram.

It also said it identified a “suspicious aerial target” that later fell in Israeli territory near the Lebanese border, adding that no injuries were reported.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on Monday (May 25, 2026) said Israel’s withdrawal from the country’s south was a “non-negotiable” demand that authorities would pursue through negotiations, days ahead of a new round of talks in Washington.

In a statement commemorating Israel’s previous withdrawal from south Lebanon in 2000 after some two decades of occupation, Mr. Aoun said that “this year, the anniversary of the liberation comes as Lebanon is weighed down by a painful reality.”

Israel-Iran war LIVE updates

“Israeli attacks have not stopped and our dear southern villages are still suffering under a renewed occupation,” he said.

Israeli troops who invaded Lebanon during the latest war with Hezbollah began on March 2 are operating inside a self-declared “yellow line” running around 10 kilometres (six miles) deep inside Lebanese territory.

Israel’s Military has also been conducting heavy strikes well beyond that area despite a ceasefire supposed to be in force since April 17. “Lebanon will not accept this reality,” Mr. Aoun said.

“The path to a full Israeli withdrawal will remain an uncompromised, constant national demand that the Lebanese state works to achieve through the option of negotiations,” he added.

Lebanon and Israel began landmark U.S.-brokered talks last month and are preparing for a fourth round in early June, preceded by a meeting between military delegations at the Pentagon on May 29.

Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem on Sunday (May 24, 2026) reiterated his opposition to the direct talks with Israel and his group’s refusal to disarm, as it keeps up attacks on Israeli targets in south Lebanon and across the border.

“If this government is incapable of guaranteeing sovereignty, it should go,” Mr. Qassem said, adding: “Where is the sovereignty if America runs the cogs of the Lebanese state?”

Mr. Aoun said that negotiations were “neither a concession nor a surrender”.

“The liberation of the south is a duty borne by the state with the support of its people,” the President added.

Lebanese authorities have committed to disarming Hezbollah and they prohibited its military activities after it drew Lebanon into the West Asia war with rocket fire at Israel, in retaliation for strikes that killed Iran’s supreme leader.

On Sunday (May 24, 2026), U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned what he called Hezbollah’s “reckless call to overthrow Lebanon’s democratically elected government”, accusing it of “actively trying to drag Lebanon back into chaos and destruction.”

Mr. Qassem had said that “the people have the right to go down onto the streets and to bring down the government” in response to Israeli attacks and U.S. sanctions on the Hezbollah-linked Al-Qard Al-Hassan financial institution, which Washington wants Beirut to shut down.

Israel on Thursday (May 14, 2026) threatened to take The New York Times to court over a piece it published denouncing allegedly widespread sexual abuse against Palestinian detainees.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Saar have ordered the “initiation of a defamation lawsuit against The New York Times”, according to a joint statement issued by their offices.

The offices said that the piece by Nicholas Kristof, a prominent opinion columnist, was “one of the most hideous and distorted lies ever published against the State of Israel in the modern press, which also received the backing of the newspaper”.

Mr. Kristof’s investigation is based on testimonies gathered in the Israeli-occupied West Bank from 14 men and women who said that they had been sexually assaulted by Israeli settlers or members of the security forces.

The report described “a pattern of widespread Israeli sexual violence against men, women and even children — by soldiers, settlers, interrogators in the Shin Bet internal security agency and, above all, prison guards”.

The New York Times responded that any legal claim over the “deeply reported opinion column” lacked merit.

“This threat, similar to one made last year, is part of a well-worn political playbook that aims to undermine independent reporting and stifle journalism that does not fit a specific narrative,” Danielle Rhoades Ha, a spokesperson for the newspaper, said in a statement.

Mr. Kristof’s piece said there was no evidence that Israeli leaders ordered rapes.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry alleged that Mr. Kristof had based his piece “on unverified sources tied to Hamas-linked networks”.

It also accused the paper of deliberately timing the publication to “undermine” an independent Israeli report on Hamas sexual violence perpetrated during its October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which was published on the same day.

Israeli forces have detained thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank since Hamas’s 2023 attack, which triggered the war in Gaza.

The United States has high protections for journalistic expression, with libel suits needing to prove that information was purposefully untrue and with harmful intent.

President Donald Trump and his allies have nonetheless filed a number of lawsuits against media outlets, some of which have reached settlements rather than risk repercussions from his administration.