Israeli drone strikes continue to target southern Lebanon over the weekend after the IDF issued a statement purporting that their 91st Division had successfully completed a ground mission in southern Lebanon.
Israeli officials touted the “achievements” of the ground operations, mostly boiling down to gathering intelligence they used to justify attacks on sites in southern Lebanon, which they declared “Hezbollah infrastructure” but never actually provided evidence for to the public.
The mission reportedly had lasted for about two months, and while we’ve seen some escalation of Israeli strikes in the last two months, there were a lot of strikes before this mission, and there is no reason to expect that strikes will start to slow now that they consider the mission accomplished.
Multiple strikes were reported over the weekend, including fatal strikes in Mansouri and Mayfadun, which left two killed. Israel also carried out strikes in the eastern Bekaa Valley, which seemingly would’ve been outside the purview of the 91st Division’s operation.
On the outskirts of Odaisseh, an incident was also reported on Friday in which an IDF drone dropped a hand grenade on UN peacekeepers. The UNIFIL reported they were in the process of detonating a found explosive device their patrol had come across when Israel dropped a grenade on them. No casualties were reported, though the UNIFIL noted this violated the UN Security Council resolution 1701 and put the lives of peacekeepers and civilians in jeopardy.
This was the second attack on UNIFIL peacekeepers just in the past week, with a previous incident seeing Israeli tanks, which may well have been part of the 91st Division deployment, fire shells at a Spanish UNIFIL peacekeeping patrol.
The ceasefire reached in November of 2024 called on Israel to withdraw all troops from Lebanon, which they’ve yet to do. In the course of operations since the ceasefire, they not only have established multiple hilltop bases on Lebanese soil, but are sending additional ground troops into Lebanon for missions like this, which are in violation of the ceasefire.
