A crater caused by an Israeli strike on a road in the district of Sour in southern Lebanon on April 6, 2026. (Credit: Kawnat Haju/AFP)
BEIRUT — Intense fighting between Hezbollah and the Israeli army continues to rage on in Bint Jbeil as Israeli troops attempt to encircle the key city in the central sector along Lebanon's southern border, according to reports from our correspondent in the region. These clashes, using small fire arms and rocket attacks, on the outskirts of the city and in surrounding localities, forced a humanitarian convoy headed to Dibil, one of the last still-inhabited villages in the area, to turn back.
According to Hezbollah, its fighters have been engaged since midday in violent clashes with an Israeli troops on the eastern outskirts of Bint Jbeil, where the group said it was firing at Israeli soldiers with “light and medium weapons,” while simultaneously using “rockets and artillery shells.” “The fighters fired a missile at a Merkava tank and the clashes are ongoing at the time of this statement,” the group said.
The sounds of fighting remain audible in neighboring zones. According to security sources cited by our correspondent, the Israeli force, which has been attempting to advance toward Bint Jbeil from the east, appears to have fallen into a Hezbollah ambush.
The group specified that, in addition to the clashes on the outskirts of Bint Jbeil, its fighters are targeting areas where the Israeli army is deployed at Maroun al-Ras, around the Moussa Abbas complex and the so-called “liberation” crossroads at the exit of Bint Jbeil, as well as on two hills overlooking Ainata, in the same region, with successive salvos of rockets and artillery shells. Vehicles and soldiers were also targeted by rockets in Rshaf and Beit Lif, two other villages near Bint Jbeil, according to the group.
Israeli forces, for their part, fired phosphorus shells toward an area between Kounin and Ainata, according to our correspondent in the South.
In this violent context, a humanitarian convoy that was scheduled to reach Dibil, a Christian village in the Bint Jbeil district where several hundred people still live, was forced to turn back, Vincent Gelot, director of Œuvre d’Orient in Lebanon, confirmed to L'Orient-Le Jour. The convoy, which included apostolic nuncio Paolo Borgia, was intended to deliver aid to the village, which is cut off from the rest of the country, but whose residents refuse to leave. The vehicles turned back about ten kilometers from the locality.
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