Israel attacks Lebanon

On Friday, Israel killed at least 13 people, including two children, in the Damascus countryside town of Beit Jinn.

The latest air raids came after locals tried to repel an Israeli military incursion into Beit Jinn, leading to clashes.

Israel claimed it was going after members of the Jamaa al-Islamiya, Lebanon’s branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

However, rubbishing the Israeli claim, the group said it was not active outside Lebanon.

Here’s everything you need to know about the attack in Beit Jinn and the context behind it.

What happened?

The Israeli army’s 55th Reserve Brigade raided Beit Jinn in the early hours of Friday morning, ostensibly to take three Syrians who live there, claiming they were members of Jamaa al-Islamiya and that they posed a “danger to Israel”.

However, the incursion did not go to plan. Locals resisted, and six Israeli soldiers were wounded in the resulting clashes, three of them seriously, according to the Israeli army.

Israel then sent in its warplanes.

“We were asleep when we were woken up at three in the morning by gunfire,” Iyad Daher, a wounded resident, told the AFP news agency from al-Mouwasat Hospital in Damascus.

“We went outside to see what was happening and saw the Israeli army in the village, soldiers and tanks,” Daher said. “Then they withdrew, the air force came – and the shells started falling.”

This was the deadliest of Israel’s more than 1,000 strikes on Syria since the fall of the Assad regime

Why were Israeli forces in Syria?

This was not the first time Israel raided Syrian territory.

Israeli officials and government-aligned media say Israel can no longer respect its enemies’ borders or allow “hostile” groups along its borders after the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, and Israel has sought to use force in other countries to create buffer zones around itself, in the Gaza Strip, Syria and Lebanon.

Since the fall of the Assad regime last December, Israel has launched frequent air raids across Syria and ground incursions in its south. It set up numerous checkpoints in Syria and detained and disappeared Syrian citizens from Syrian territory, holding them illegally in Israel.

It invaded the buffer zone that separated the two countries since they signed the 1974 disengagement agreement, setting up outposts around Jabal al-Sheikh (Mount Hermon in English).

The new Syrian government, led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, said it would abide by the 1974 agreement.

Israel occupied the Syrian Golan Heights in 1967. A demilitarised zone was later established, but when President Bashar al-Assad was ousted, and his army was in shambles, Israel invaded to take outposts on Syrian-controlled land.

What did the Syrian government say?

That the attack is a war crime.

The Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement, condemning “the criminal attack carried out by an Israeli occupation army patrol in Beit Jinn. The occupation forces’ targeting of the town of Beit Jinn with brutal and deliberate shelling, following their failed incursion, constitutes a full-fledged war crime.”

What is Israel claiming?

Israel’s public broadcaster said the operation was an “arrest raid” targeting Jamaa al-Islamiya members.

An Israeli army spokesperson said three people linked to the group were “arrested”.

Israel claims the group is operating in southern Syria to “recruit terrorists” and plays a role in what it calls the “northern front” – Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.

Al Jazeera’s Osama Bin Javaid reported from Syria that Israel has yet to offer any proof of the claim that the people it was after were involved with the group.

What is Jamaa al-Islamiya?

The group is the Lebanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

It was founded in 1956 and has a stable presence in Lebanon, though it has never been as popular as some of its regional counterparts.

It has one member of parliament and was historically aligned with the Future Movement, founded by former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

However, the group moved closer to Iran and Hezbollah politically in recent years. Its armed wing, the Fajr Forces, took part in some operations against Israel in 2023-24.

After Israel’s claims that it was involved in southern Syria, the group released a statement on Friday stating that it was “surprised” Israeli media had involved it in what happened in Beit Jinn.

Denouncing the attack, it said it conducts “no activities outside Lebanon”.

The group added that it has abided by and committed to the ceasefire agreement from November 2024 between Lebanon and Israel.

Has Israel claimed it was attacking this group before?

Yes.

In March 2024, Israel attacked al-Habbariyeh in southern Lebanon, killing seven emergency relief volunteers.

It claimed the attack targeted a member of the group, calling him a “significant terrorist”.

However, the alleged target was never named, the director of the Lebanese Emergency and Relief Corps’ Ambulance Association told Al Jazeera.

Israel has carried out its deadliest incursion into southern Syria since the fall of President Bashar al-Assad. At least 13 people were killed in Beit Jinn. Al Jazeera’s Osama Bin Javaid reports Syrian officials reject Israel’s narrative and accuse it of violating international law.

Video shows funeral processions in Syria’s Beit Jinn, after Israeli raids and missile strikes killed at least 13 people. Violent clashes erupted after Israel claimed it entered the village to arrest members of the Jama’a Islamiya militant group.

An Israeli air strike on Beirut has killed Haytham Ali Tabatabai, Hezbollah’s chief of staff.

Tabatabai was the highest-level Hezbollah official targeted by Israel since a ceasefire came into force a year ago between the armed group and Israel’s military.

There have been frequent Israeli breaches of the agreement, but observers say the latest attack is a major escalation.

So why is this strike coming now – and what are the implications?

Presenter:

Imran Khan

Guests:

Joe Macaron – Geopolitical analyst specialising in US strategy in the Middle East

Nadim Houry – Executive director of the Arab Reform Initiative

Alon Pinkas – Former Israeli ambassador and consul general of Israel in New York

Marjayoun district, Lebanon – In his southern Lebanese hometown of Hula, a few metres away from the border with Israel, Khairallah Yaacoub walks through his olive grove. Khairallah is harvesting the olives, even though there aren’t many this year.

The orchard, which once contained 200 olive trees and dozens of other fruit-bearing trees, is now largely destroyed. After a ceasefire was declared between Hezbollah and Israel in November 2024, ending a one-year war, the Israeli army entered the area, bulldozed the land, and uprooted trees across border areas, including Hula – 56,000 olive trees according to Lebanon’s Agriculture Minister Nizar Hani. Israeli officials have said that they plan to remain indefinitely in a “buffer zone” in the border region.

Israeli forces are not currently stationed in what remains of Khairallah’s farm, but the grove is fully exposed to Israeli positions in Menora, on the other side of the border. That makes the olive farmer’s every movement visible to the Israeli army, and is why he has been so afraid to venture to his trees before today.

Harvesting under fire

“This was the place where my brothers and I lived our lives,” said Khairallah, as he walked next to the olive trees that he said were more than 40 years old. “We spent long hours here ploughing, planting, and harvesting. But the [Israeli] occupation army has destroyed everything.”

Khairallah now has 10 olive trees left, but their yield is small for several reasons, most notably the lack of rainfall and the fact that he and his brothers had to abandon the orchard when war broke out between Hezbollah and Israel on October 8, 2023. Khairallah’s aim now is to begin the process of restoring and replanting his olive grove, the main source of livelihood for the 55-year-old and his four brothers.

The farm in Hula, which lies in the district of Marjayoun, once provided them with not just olives, but olive oil, and various other fruits. They also kept 20 cows on the land, all of which have died due to the war.

But with the presence of the Israelis nearby, getting things back to a semblance of what they once were is not easy, and involves taking a lot of risks.

“Last year, we couldn’t come to the grove and didn’t harvest the olives,” Khairallah said. “[Now,] the Israeli army might send me a warning through a drone or fire a stun grenade to scare me off, and if I don’t withdraw, I could be directly shelled.”

Systematic destruction

Like Khairallah, Hussein Daher is also a farmer in Marjayoun, but in the town of Blida, about five kilometres (3.1 miles) away from Hula.

Hussein owns several dunams of olive trees right on Lebanon’s border with Israel. Some of his olive trees, centuries old and inherited from his ancestors, were also uprooted. As for the ones still standing, Hussein has been unable to harvest them because of Israeli attacks.

Hussein described what he says was one such attack as he tried to reach one of his groves.

“An Israeli drone appeared above me. I raised my hands to indicate that I am a farmer, but it came closer again,” said Hussein. “I moved to another spot, and minutes later, it returned to the same place I had been standing and dropped a bomb; if I hadn’t moved, it would have killed me.”

The United Nations reported last month that Israeli attacks in Lebanon since the beginning of the ceasefire had killed more than 270 people.

The dangers mean that some farmers have still not returned. But many, like Hussein, have no choice. The farmer emphasised that olive harvest seasons were an economic lifeline to him and to most other farmers.

And they now have to attempt to recoup some of the losses they have had to sustain over the last two years.

According to an April study by the United Nations’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 814 hectares (2,011 acres) of olive groves were destroyed, with losses in the sector alone estimated at $236m, a significant proportion of the total $586m losses in the wider agricultural sector.

“We used to produce hundreds of containers of olive oil; today, we produce nothing,” said Hussein, who has a family of eight to provide for. “Some farmers used to produce more than 200 containers of olive oil per season, worth roughly $20,000. These families depended on olive farming, honey production, and agriculture, but now everything was destroyed.”

Abandoned

The troubles facing the olive farmers have had a knock-on effect for the olive press owners who turn the harvested olives into Lebanon’s prized olive oil.

At one olive press in Aitaroun, also in southern Lebanon, the owner, Ahmad Ibrahim, told Al Jazeera that he had only produced one truckload of olive oil this year, compared with the 15 to 20 truckloads his presses make in a typical year.

“Some villages, like Yaroun, used to bring large quantities of olives, but this year none came,” Ahmad said. “The occupation destroyed vast areas of their orchards and prevented farmers from reaching the remaining ones by shooting at them and keeping them away.”

Ahmad, in his 70s and a father of five, established this olive press in 2001. He emphasised that the decline in agriculture, particularly olive cultivation in southern Lebanon, would significantly affect local communities.

Many of those areas are still scarred from the fighting, and the weapons used by Israel could still be affecting the olive trees and other crops being grown in southern Lebanon.

Hussein points to Israel’s alleged use of white phosphorus, a poisonous substance that burns whatever it lands on, saying the chemical has affected plant growth.

Experts have previously told Al Jazeera that Israel’s use of white phosphorus, which Israel says it uses to create smokescreens on battlefields, is part of the attempt to create a buffer zone along the border.

But if Lebanese farmers are going to push back against the buffer zone plan, and bring the border region alive again, they’ll need support from authorities both in Lebanon and internationally – support they say has not been forthcoming.

“Unfortunately, no one has compensated us, neither the Ministry of Agriculture nor anyone else,” said Khairallah, the farmer from Hula. “My losses aren’t just in the orchard that was bulldozed, but also in the farm and the house. My home, located in the middle of the town, was heavily damaged.”

The Lebanese government has said that it aims to support the districts affected by the war, and has backed NGO-led efforts to help farmers.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Agriculture Minister Hani said that the government had begun to compensate farmers – up to $2,500 – and plant 200,000 olive seedlings. He also outlined restoration projects and the use of the country’s farmers registry to help the agricultural sector.

“Through the registry, farmers will be able to obtain loans, assistance, and social and health support,” Hani said. “Olives and olive oil are of great and fundamental value, and are a top priority for the Ministry of Agriculture.”

But Khairallah, Hussein, and Ahmad have yet to see that help from the government, indicating that it will take some time to scale up recovery operations.

That absence of support, Hussein said, will eventually force the farmers to pack up and leave, abandoning a tradition hundreds of years old.

“If a farmer does not plant, he cannot survive,” Hussein said. “Unfortunately, the government says it cannot help, while international organisations and donors, like the European Union and the World Bank, promised support, but we haven’t seen anything yet.”

Israel continues to attack Lebanon on a near-daily basis in violation of a yearlong ceasefire with Hezbollah.

At least 13 people have been killed in an Israeli air strike on a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health.

The drone strike hit a car on Tuesday in the car park of a mosque in the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp on the outskirts of the coastal city of Sidon, the Lebanese state-run National News Agency reported.

At least four people were wounded in the attack, the ministry said, adding that “ambulances are still transporting more wounded to nearby hospitals.”

Israel said it struck members of the Palestinian armed group Hamas who were operating in a training compound in the refugee camp.

“When we say we will not tolerate any threat on our northern border, this means all terrorist groups operating in the region,” the Israeli military’s Arabic spokesperson Avichay Adraee said in a statement. “We will continue to act forcefully against Hamas’s attempts to establish a foothold in Lebanon and eliminate its elements that threaten our security.”

Hamas denied Israel’s claim, calling it a “fabrication” and stressing the group doesn’t have training facilities in Lebanon’s refugee camps.

“The Zionist bombardment was a barbaric aggression against our innocent Palestinian people as well as Lebanon’s sovereignty,” it said in a statement.

Earlier on Tuesday, Lebanon said Israeli strikes on cars elsewhere in the country’s south killed two people.

Israel has killed several officials from Palestinian factions including Hamas in Lebanon since it launched its war on Gaza in October 2023 after Hamas led an attack on southern Israel

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 69,483 Palestinians and wounded 170,706. A total of 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks, and more than 200 were taken captive.

A day after Israel launched its war on Gaza, Hezbollah began firing rockets towards Israel, which responded with shelling and air strikes in Lebanon, and the two sides became locked in a conflict that Israel escalated into a full-blown war in late September 2024.

Israel’s war killed more than 4,000 people in Lebanon, including hundreds of civilians. In Israel, 127 people were killed, including 80 soldiers.

The war halted in late November 2024 with a United States-brokered ceasefire, but since then, Israel has carried out dozens of air attacks on Lebanon, accusing Hezbollah of trying to rebuild its capabilities.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry has reported more than 270 people killed and about 850 wounded by Israeli military actions since the ceasefire.

“There are daily violations of the ceasefire by Israel in Lebanon, and it would be unfair at this stage to pin the blame on the Lebanese government,” Lebanese political analyst Karim Emile Bitar told Al Jazeera. “The Lebanese government went above and beyond what was required … and took a historic decision to ask the Lebanese army to disarm Hezbollah.”

However, Bitar said, Israel has not lived up to its end of the bargain. Under the terms of the ceasefire signed on November 27, 2024, Israel was meant to withdraw its forces from southern Lebanon by January 26, a deadline it missed.

Recent Israeli air strikes on Lebanon have reignited fears of more conflict along the border.

Israel says it is targeting Hezbollah positions to stop the group from rebuilding its military capabilities.

Israeli forces are also bombing Gaza, violating a recently agreed to ceasefire, and have launched more than 1,000 air strikes in Syria since the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime.

Next week, US President Donald Trump will host Ahmed al-Sharaa, the first Syrian president to visit the White House.

So, how will that meeting impact regional sovereignty?

And can Israel sustain its near-daily attacks across the Middle East under the guise of security?

Presenter: Cyril Vanier

Guests:

Nabeel Khoury – non-resident fellow at the Arab Center Washington, DC

Heiko Wimmen – project director for Iraq, Syria and Lebanon at the International Crisis Group

Harlan Ullman – senior adviser at the Atlantic Council and chairman of the Killowen Group, a strategic advisory firm

US president says Gaza ceasefire ‘working out very well’ despite deadly Israeli attacks and severe aid restrictions.

Video shows Israeli drones launching intense airstrikes in southern Lebanon on Thursday. At least one person was killed in the town of Toura. Israel said it was targeting Hezbollah sites despite a ceasefire agreed to with the group last year.