Israeli strikes on Lebanon after rocket fire on Israel

The Israeli army announced Saturday that it had launched strikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, after threatening a harsh response to rocket fire from Lebanese territory. Israel said it intercepted three rockets fired Saturday from southern Lebanon toward the north of its territory. The attacks have not been claimed so far.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the military to hit “dozens of terrorist targets” in Lebanon in response to the launches. The army later issued a statement confirming that it had struck Iran-backed Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon.

A cease-fire agreement on Nov. 27 ended two months of open war between the Israeli army and Hezbollah, which had opened a front against Israel in solidarity with the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas at the start of the Gaza war in October 2023. The truce has largely held, despite mutual accusations of repeated violations. The Israeli army continues to hold positions in southern Lebanon at five strategic sites near Israel’s northern border.

Earlier in the day, Israeli Chief of Staff Gen. Eyal Zamir promised a “severe response” to the rocket fire. “We cannot allow fire from Lebanon on the Galilee communities,” said Defense Minister Israel Katz.

Airstrike sirens were triggered at 7:30 a.m. (05:30 GMT) in Metula, a village in northern Israel near the Lebanese border. “We promised security to the Galilee communities, and that is exactly what will happen,” Katz declared. “Metula’s fate is the same as Beirut’s.”

‘Disastrous consequences’

On Saturday morning, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported Israeli artillery fire targeting multiple areas in southern Lebanon. The Lebanese army announced that it had “found three improvised rocket launchers in an area north of the Litani River,” approximately 30 km from the Israeli border, and had “dismantled them.”

Following the announcement of rocket fire into Israel, Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam warned against the risk of renewed military operations at the southern border, stating that such developments “could drag Lebanon into a new war with disastrous consequences.”

He added that he had contacted the Defense Minister “to ensure that only the state has the authority to decide on matters of war and peace.” The UN peacekeeping force (UNIFIL), deployed in southern Lebanon near the Israeli border, expressed “concern” about a possible escalation. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun condemned the “ongoing [Israeli] aggression against Lebanon.”

Despite the truce, the Israeli army has continued to carry out often deadly strikes in Lebanon, claiming to target “terrorist infrastructure” or Hezbollah members and leaders.

Displacement

At the time Hezbollah began launching rockets into Israel in solidarity with its ally Hamas in October 2023, the Iranian-backed group remained a dominant political and military force in Lebanon.

In September 2024, cross-border hostilities escalated into full-scale war with massive bombardments in Lebanon, particularly targeting Hezbollah strongholds, before a ceasefire was reached two months later. Hezbollah emerged from the war significantly weakened, with much of its leadership decimated.

Since the start of the Gaza war on Oct. 7, 2023 — triggered by Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israeli soil — about 60,000 people fled northern Israel. Only some have returned in recent weeks after receiving clearance from authorities. On the Lebanese side, more than one million people fled the south, with around 100,000 still displaced, according to the United Nations.

Under the terms of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement, Israel was to withdraw from southern Lebanon, where only the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers were to be deployed. Hezbollah was required to dismantle its infrastructure and pull back north of the Litani River, some 30 kilometers from the Israeli border.

L'armée israélienne dit mener des frappes sur des cibles du Hezbollah dans le sud du Liban