Continuing the ever-escalating attacks on southern Lebanon, Israel carried out a flurry of attacks again on late Sunday evening and early Monday, killing at least three people in the last 24 hours, all of whom they claimed, as they so often do, were in some way Hezbollah members.
Two of them were killed in strikes overnight in Houmine al-Faouqa and al-Sawana, while the third was killed Monday in a strike near Sidon, in the town of Baisariyah. The IDF claimed, without evidence, that the third person was involved in weapons smuggling.
Such strikes were not the only ones. Large numbers of airstrikes were reported against other sites in the south and east, including Mahmoudiyeh and Qotrani in the Jezzine District, and Sharaa in the Bekaa Valley.
An Israeli strike destroyed a car in Baisariyah, southern Lebanon | Image from X
The IDF claimed the sites targeted were places from which rockets were launched, though presumably quite some ago, as Hezbollah has not launched a single rocket at Israel since the ceasefire went into effect in November of 2024.
The attacks come amid pressure by Israel for Lebanon to impose some vaguely defined situation where Hezbollah ceases to exist and a depopulated “Trump zone” is created in the south that is partially Israeli-occupied. Lebanon has sought negotiations and Israel has repeatedly rejected them.
Israel’s new demand is for the Lebanese Army to unilaterally search private homes in southern parts of Lebanon searching for “Hezbollah weapons.” The Lebanese Army rejected it on the grounds that such searches would fuel civil strife.
The refusal to conduct such searches was almost certainly the expected outcome, and will also be presented by Israel as proof that the Lebanese Army isn’t doing everything they possibly can to destroy Hezbollah, providing another justification for the ongoing escalation.
