Three Israeli attacks hit Bint Jbeil, Shebaa and Chaqra.
Israel has carried out three drone attacks on towns in southern Lebanon, resulting in a death and several injured, in the latest wave of near-daily Israeli violations of the November ceasefire between Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah.
An “Israeli enemy drone attack on a vehicle” in the Saf al-Hawa area in the city of Bint Jbeil “killed one person and wounded two others”, Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health said in a statement on Saturday carried by the official National News Agency (NNA), noting the toll was expected to rise.
Earlier Saturday, the ministry also reported that a separate Israeli drone attack wounded one person in Shebaa, with the NNA saying that raid hit a house. Shebaa is located across two steep, rocky mountainsides that straddle Lebanon’s borders with Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Israel also launched a drone attack on the town of Chaqra, in the Bint Jbeil District. Lebanon’s Health Ministry said two people were wounded in the attack.
Translation: Video: Two injured due to the air raid on a car in the town of Chaqra.
Israel has kept up its bombardment of Lebanon on a near daily basis, despite a November 27 US-brokered ceasefire that sought to end more than a year of hostilities with Hezbollah, including an intensive period of the war that left the Iran-aligned group severely weakened.
Israel says its air raids are targeting officials and facilities of Hezbollah and other groups. Hezbollah has claimed only one strike fired across the border since the ceasefire.
Most of the Israeli strikes have been in southern Lebanon, but Israel has also struck Beirut’s southern suburbs several times since the ceasefire, destroying residential buildings and prompting panic and chaos among residents fleeing the area.
On Thursday, an Israeli strike on a vehicle at the southern entrance of Beirut, close to the country’s only commercial airport, killed one man and wounded three other people, Lebanon said, as the Israeli army claimed it hit a “terrorist” working for Iran.
Under the ceasefire deal, Hezbollah was to pull its fighters back north of the Litani River, about 30km (20 miles) from the Israeli border, leaving the Lebanese army and United Nations peacekeepers as the only armed parties in the region.
Israel was required to fully withdraw its troops from the country but has kept them in five locations in southern Lebanon that it deems strategic.
Israel has warned that it will keep attacking Lebanon until Hezbollah has been disarmed.
Nearly 250 people have been killed and 609 wounded in Israeli attacks in Lebanon between November 28 – the day after the ceasefire took effect – and the end of June, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.
A United States envoy is expected in Beirut early next week to discuss with Lebanon’s leadership efforts to pressure Hezbollah to relinquish its arms to the state. Hezbollah has rejected a US proposal to disarm by November, calling it “suicidal” amid daily Israeli attacks.
Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun has repeatedly called on the US and France to rein in Israel’s attacks, noting that disarming Hezbollah is a “sensitive, delicate issue”.
An Israeli drone attack on a car killed at least one person and injured three others near the Lebanese capital Beirut on Thursday during rush hour, according to local authorities. Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr was at the scene as officials inspected the wreckage.
Air raid hits vehicle in Khaldeh, south of Lebanese capital, as Israel continues its near-daily attacks on Lebanon.
An Israeli drone attack has killed at least one person and injured three near the Lebanese capital, Beirut, the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health says, the latest violation of the ceasefire between the two countries.
The air raid on Thursday hit a vehicle on a busy motorway in the Khaldeh area, about 12km (8 miles) south of Beirut.
The Israeli military said it targeted “military sites and weapons depots” in the area.
Bombing an area near the Lebanese capital marks another escalation by Israel, which has been carrying out near-daily bombardment in Lebanon since it reached a truce with Hezbollah in November of last year.
The identities of the victims of the attack have not been released.
Reporting from outside Beirut, Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr noted that the Israeli air raid took place during rush hour, with many people making their way from Beirut to south Lebanon.
“Israel is also acting with little restraint. The Lebanese state wants these attacks to stop, but the state has little leverage. Hezbollah, too, if it does respond, could trigger a harsh Israeli retaliation,” Khodr said.
“We don’t see a wide-scale Israeli bombardment like we saw last year, targeting areas where Hezbollah has influence, but we see these attacks happening almost on a daily basis.”
Later on Thursday, the Israeli military carried out a wave of air strikes across south Lebanon, with heavy bombardment targeting the outskirts of Zawtar al-Charqiyeh, near Nabatieh, Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported.
Lebanese officials often condemn such attacks and call on the United States and France – the two sponsors of last year’s ceasefire – to pressure Israel to end its violations.
But diplomatic efforts have failed to stem the ceasefire breaches, amid unwillingness by the US and its Western allies to hold Israel to account.
The repeated Israeli attacks are testing Hezbollah’s position in Lebanon after it suffered painful blows in its confrontation with Israel last year.
The Iran-allied group started attacking Israeli military positions at the border in October 2023, in what it said was a “support front” to help bring an end to the war on Gaza.
For months, the conflict remained largely confined to the border region, but in September of last year, Israel launched an all-out assault on Lebanon that destroyed large parts of the country, especially areas where Hezbollah enjoys support.
The Israeli military also assassinated the group’s top political and military leaders, including Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.
A ceasefire was reached in November, in accordance with Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended a previous conflict in 2006.
The truce stipulated that Hezbollah must withdraw its forces to the north of the Litani River, about 30km (20 miles) from the Israeli border.
But after the truce came into effect, Israel continued to occupy parts of south Lebanon in violation of the agreement, and it has been carrying out attacks across the country.
Weakened by the war, Hezbollah has refrained from responding. The Lebanese Armed Forces have also failed to hit back against Israel.
The latest strike in Khaldeh comes amid Lebanese media reports about a US proposal that would see Hezbollah disarm in exchange for an end to Israel’s attacks and a full withdrawal from the country.
But Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Naim Qassem appeared to dismiss any agreement to give up the group’s weapons that would involve Israel.
“We are a group that cannot be driven to humiliation. We will not give up our land. We will not give up our arms to the Israeli enemy,” Qassem said. “And we will not accept to be threatened into concessions.”
Qassem previously warned that Hezbollah’s “patience” in allowing the Lebanese state to deal with the Israeli attacks diplomatically may run out.
But given the cost of the previous war on Hezbollah’s military structure as well as its civilian base, it is not clear whether the group is in a position to renew the conflict with Israel.
Israel still pummeling northern neighbour despite ceasefire; latest attacks follow Friday’s deadly strike on Nabatieh.
Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon on multiple vehicles have killed three people as attacks continue despite a November ceasefire with the armed group Hezbollah.
Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health said on Saturday that one person was killed in an “Israeli enemy” drone strike on a car in the village of Kunin while two others were killed after an Israeli strike on a motorcycle in Mahrouna, near Tyre.
The Israeli army claimed that the attack on the car “eliminated the terrorist Hassan Muhammad Hammoudi”, who it said was responsible for antitank missile attacks on Israeli territory during the recent war.
The latest Israeli attacks came a day after Israel killed a woman and wounded 25 people in attacks across southern Lebanon.
Lebanon’s National News Agency reported that the woman was killed in an Israeli drone strike on an apartment in the city of Nabatieh.
An Israeli army spokesperson said on social media that the army “did not target any civilian building”, claiming that the woman was killed by a Hezbollah rocket set off by the Israeli strike.
Israel, which retains troops in five locations in south Lebanon, has repeatedly bombed its neighbour despite a ceasefire which halted more than a year of fire exchanges and nearly two months of an all-out war.
On Friday, Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun accused Israel of continually violating the US-brokered deal, which required the country to fully withdraw its troops from the country.
Under the deal, Hezbollah was to pull its fighters back north of the Litani River, about 30km (20 miles) from the Israeli border, leaving the Lebanese army and United Nations peacekeepers in charge.
Lebanese state media reports civilian casualties after Israeli attack on residential apartment building in Nabatieh.
At least one person has been killed and more than a dozen others were wounded in Israeli air attacks on southern Lebanon, the health ministry has said, as the Israeli military said it struck sites linked to the armed group Hezbollah.
In a report on Friday, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency cited the country’s health ministry saying that a woman and 13 other people were targeted in an air raid that hit a residential apartment building in Nabatieh. Seven others were wounded in air raids on the outskirts of the city, it added.
The Israeli army said its fighters attacked an underground site used by Hezbollah for its fire and defence system in Belfort, a site in the Nabatieh governorate. The military said it identified attempts by the Lebanese group to resume activities there after Israel had taken it out of use in the past.
The resumption of activities there would have been in breach of the November truce agreed by the two sides, which halted more than a year of fire exchanges and nearly two months of an all-out war.
Later on Friday, the Israeli army spokesman said that Lebanese reports that an Israeli drone hit a residential building, causing civilian injuries, “were inaccurate”.
In a post on X, Avichay Adraee said that “the explosion that damaged the civilian building was caused by a rocket located at the Hezbollah site, which detonated as a result of the Israeli strike”.
He accused Hezbollah of “continuing to store its aggressive rockets near residential buildings and Lebanese civilians, thereby putting them at risk”.
Footage shared on social media, and verified by Al Jazeera’s Sanad fact-checking agency, shows large plumes rising from the hill where Israeli aircraft struck their target, as the roar of jets is heard overhead.
Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun on Friday accused Israel of continually violating the US-brokered ceasefire deal by keeping up strikes on Lebanon.
The ceasefire deal stipulates that southern Lebanon must be free of any non-state arms or fighters, Israeli soldiers must leave southern Lebanon as Lebanese troops deploy there and all fire across the Lebanese-Israeli border must stop.
Israeli troops remain in at least five posts within Lebanese territory and its air force regularly launches air raids, which it claims target rank and file Hezbollah members or people affiliated with the group.
June 25 (UPI) — The World Bank on Wednesday announced a $1.3 billion investment in projects in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria.
The costliest of the three projects will happen in Iraq, as the World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors approved $930 million in financing to help improve the country’s railways.
“As Iraq shifts from reconstruction to development, enhanced trade and connectivity can stimulate growth, create jobs, and reduce oil dependency,” said the World Bank’s Middle East Division Director Jean-Christophe Carret of the Iraq Railways Extension and Modernization, or IREM, project, which is intended to improve railway services and infrastructure between the Umm Qasr Port in southern Iraq and Mosul in northern Iraq.
IREM is expected to fix and improve about 650 miles of existing railway, improve the performance of the Iraqi Republic Railways, or IRR, reduce travel time and also allow for an increase in freight volumes, which should give rail users more in the way of reliable transport services.
“The IREM project is vital for transforming Iraq into a regional transport hub and helping achieve the [Iraq Development Road’s] goals of improved connectivity and economic diversification and growth,” Carret added.
The Iraq Development Road project, which was greenlit in 2023, is a regional railway that connects the Gulf region through Iraq to Turkey and then extends into Europe. Once enacted, by 2037 IREM should allow the IRR to carry millions of people and tons of freight through eight of Iraq’s provinces and create nearly 22,000 jobs annually by 2040.
For Syria, the World Bank’s board has approved a $146 million grant to help restore reliable electricity and support the country’s economic recovery via the Syria Electricity Emergency Project, or SEEP.
SEEP is slated to pay for the rehabilitation of high voltage transmission lines that were damaged during years of conflict, as well as repair transformer substations in the areas that receive the highest number of refugees and displaced people while arranging for technical assistance and investment plans.
“Electricity is a foundational investment for economic progress, service delivery and livelihoods,” said Syrian Finance Minister Yisr Barnieh, who noted this project was the first for the World Bank in Syria in almost 40 years.
“We hope it will lay the ground for a comprehensive and structured support program to help Syria on its path to recovery and long-term development,” he added.
According to the World Bank, damage to Syria’s national grid currently limits electrical usage there to only between two and four hours daily.
Conflict in Lebanon over the past two years has damaged buildings and infrastructure that are necessary to effectively serve in several of the nation’s sectors, such as education, health care, energy, transportation and water. The World Bank’s funding will go to the Lebanon Emergency Assistance Project, or LEAP, which is intended to address reconstruction and recovery as quickly as possible.
Director Carret says LEAP “offers a credible vehicle for development partners to align their support, alongside continued progress on the government’s reform agenda, and maximize collective impact in support of Lebanon’s recovery and long-term reconstruction.”
Israel has carried out near-daily violations of the November ceasefire that ended its 14-month war with Hezbollah.
Israeli air raids have targeted the outskirts of several areas in south Lebanon, including the villages of Zrariyeh, Kfrar Milki and Ansar, according to the country’s National News Agency.
The attacks on Monday appear to have targeted open areas outside of the towns. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Monday’s airstrikes were reportedly more intense than the usual, near-daily, violations — that Israel has carried out — of the November 2024 ceasefire that ended its 14-month war with Hezbollah.
The Israeli military says it struck rocket launchers and an arms depot for Hezbollah, but provided no evidence of that.
Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem warned last week that the group may take “appropriate” measures if the conflict between Israel and Iran escalates further. So far, the Iran-allied group has not militarily intervened in the conflict.
Demonstrators gathered for a rally in solidarity with Iran after Friday prayers in Beirut.
Al Jazeera has verified video in on of the locations of the Israeli bombing.
Translation: Scenes from the Israeli airstrikes on southern Lebanon now.
Earlier this month, launched a series of strikes targeting Beirut’s southern suburbs, sending huge numbers of residents fleeing their homes on the eve of the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday after issuing a forced evacuation order an hour earlier.
Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz warned at the time that “there will be no calm in Beirut” and “no order or stability in Lebanon” unless Hezbollah is disarmed.
That Israeli attack was the fourth, and heaviest, carried out targeting Beirut’s southern suburbs – a Hezbollah stronghold – since the ceasefire ended hostilities.
Beirut, Lebanon – When Israel attacked Lebanon in September 2024, Fatima Kandil left her home in Beirut’s southern suburbs, known colloquially as Dahiyeh. As the area sustained wide-scale Israeli air strikes, many Lebanese fled Dahiyeh for other parts of the country or, like Kandil, sought refuge in Iraq.
Nearly seven months after the November ceasefire between Israel and the armed Lebanese group Hezbollah – an agreement Lebanon says Israel has repeatedly violated – rockets are lighting up the night sky once again. But this time, Hezbollah is not involved. Instead, Israel and Iran are exchanging direct military attacks.
“We don’t know how this will all end, so we are undoubtedly tense,” Kandil, now back in Lebanon, told Al Jazeera. However, she added that she had a feeling of satisfaction seeing missiles rain down on Israel. “Our revenge is being taken,” she said.
While Kandil’s sentiment is shared by some in Lebanon, others – those who see Iran’s support for Hezbollah, a group that has dominated Lebanon militarily and politically for two decades, as nefarious – cheered on the Israeli attacks against Iran. Many people in Lebanon told Al Jazeera they hoped that stability would prevail and that their country wouldn’t be dragged back into a prolonged conflict or subjected to the ferocity and frequency of the Israeli attacks it suffered last year.
“People are taking precautions,” Karim Safieddine, a Lebanese political writer and academic, told Al Jazeera. “Some are readying their bags.”
No intervention … yet
Early Friday, Israel struck Iran and assassinated several top commanders in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) along with top nuclear scientists. Numerous civilians were also killed, including children, according to Iranian state media.
Hours later, Hezbollah released a statement condemning the Israeli attacks and offering condolences for the slain Iranian officers. But analysts say the statement was a clear sign that Hezbollah would not be entering the battle in support of Iran.
“Currently, there is no need for Hezbollah to intervene, as Iranian missiles are capable of confronting the Israeli occupation,” said Qassem Kassir, a Lebanese political analyst supportive of the group. “However, if the situation escalates into a full-scale war, nothing prevents the situation from changing.”
Hezbollah, founded amid the Lebanese civil war in 1982 with Iranian backing and funding, draws much of its support from Lebanon’s Shia Muslim community. The group began firing rockets at Israel on October 8, 2023, after the start of Israel’s war on Gaza.
Israeli attacks in Lebanon between October 2023 and November 2024 largely targeted areas where Shia live, killing around 4,000 civilians and fighters, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health.
Many Lebanese are still reeling from the damage left by Israel’s attacks. Some remain displaced from their villages in southern Lebanon, which was razed. Hezbollah’s priority is to ensure that homes and towns are built in the area.
While Israel is still hitting targets around the country, mostly in southern Lebanon but occasionally in the Beirut suburbs as well, any resumption of military activity by Hezbollah would likely draw an even more intense Israeli response and further disrupt reconstruction efforts.
Much of Hezbollah’s military arsenal was reportedly destroyed during the Israeli attacks, though analysts believe they have retained some arms, including ballistic missiles.
Still, Hezbollah’s lack of intervention in the current Israel-Iran conflict is “evidence of their lack of capacity”, Safieddine said. Hezbollah may not have the means to intervene militarily.
The Israeli campaign on Lebanon also left Hezbollah’s political leadership battered. Many of the group’s most senior military figures, including longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah, were assassinated. The group’s political hegemony is now being challenged by the Lebanese state, with pressure from the United States and Israel, as it moves to disarm Hezbollah and bring the use of force under the state’s exclusive authority.
For now, analysts believe there is a consensus and understanding between Tehran and Hezbollah that the group will not intervene.
“Domestic political circumstances make it extremely difficult for Hezbollah to join in Iranian retaliation,” Nicholas Blanford, a nonresident senior fellow with the US-based think tank Atlantic Council, told Al Jazeera. “And the Iranians recognise they can’t call on them.”
The battle within
While Hezbollah is sometimes referred to as an Iranian proxy, many experts say the group is more accurately described as a close ally of the IRGC and the Iranian government with shared interests and a similar ideology.
During Israel’s heavy bombardment of Lebanon between September and November 2024, Iran’s intervention was relatively limited. Israel invaded southern Lebanon, and while Israeli troops have pulled out of most of the Lebanese territory they entered during the war, they still occupy five points.
“There’s resentment and unhappiness toward Iran by Hezbollah because they feel Iran let them down in the recent conflict,” Blanford said. Iran reportedly asked Hezbollah not to use some of its more lethal weapons, which analysts linked to fears of an Israeli response on Iranian territory.
As for Israel’s attacks on Iran, there’s no indication that Tehran has asked Hezbollah to get involved yet, according to Kassir, the analyst thought to be close to Hezbollah. But that might change if a protracted war draws in actors from around the region.
Blanford said he doesn’t expect to “see Hezbollah joining in full scale”, but noted that if Israel starts to struggle in its fight against Iran, it could lead to “some activity along the Blue Line”, the line traversing Lebanon’s southern border. If that happens, Blanford said, Hezbollah may look to carry out operations in the Israeli-occupied areas of Lebanon.
Israel’s plans for Lebanon and Hezbollah remain unclear, but the sound of Israeli drones, an ever-present buzz during the most severe days of the war, has returned to Beirut’s skies in the last few days.
“I wouldn’t rule out [Hezbollah’s intervention] entirely,” said Blanford. “But for now, it looks like they will stand on the sidelines and keep an eagle eye on what is going on.”
Israel warned ‘there will be no calm in Beirut’ after launching its largest attack on the Lebanese capital since the ceasefire.
The Israeli military will continue to bomb Lebanon if Hezbollah is not disarmed, Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz has warned, saying “there will be no calm in Beirut” and “no order or stability in Lebanon” unless Israel’s security is assured.
“Agreements must be honoured, and if you do not do what is required, we will continue to act, and with great force,” the Israeli minister said in a Friday statement.
Israel’s military launched a series of strikes targeting Beirut’s southern suburbs on Thursday night, sending huge numbers of residents fleeing their homes on the eve of the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday after issuing a forced evacuation order an hour earlier.
Israel claimed, without providing evidence, that its latest attack was launched against Hezbollah “drone factories” in the Lebanese capital.
The Israeli military said Hezbollah was “operating to increase production of UAVs [drones] for the next war” with Israel in “blatant violation” of the terms of November’s ceasefire.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported that Israeli fighter jets had carried out about a dozen strikes in the attack. A Hezbollah statement said a preliminary assessment showed nine buildings had been destroyed, while dozens of others were damaged.
Hezbollah also denied there were drone production facilities in the targeted locations.
The Israeli attack was the fourth, and heaviest, carried out targeting Beirut’s southern suburbs – a Hezbollah stronghold – since the ceasefire ended hostilities on November 27.
Israel’s last attack on the Lebanese capital, in which it claimed to destroy “infrastructure where precision missiles” were being stored by Hezbollah, came in late April.
‘Flagrant violation of an international accord’
Across Lebanon, Israel has violated the ceasefire on a near-daily basis in the seven months since it was signed, according to the Lebanese government of President Joseph Aoun, Arab nations and human rights groups.
Aoun has appealed to the United States and France, guarantors of the November ceasefire, to rein in Israel’s attacks.
Speaking late on Thursday, Aoun voiced “firm condemnation of the Israeli aggression”, labelling the attacks a “flagrant violation of an international accord … on the eve of a sacred religious festival”.
On Friday, Ali Ammar, a Hezbollah lawmaker, urged “all Lebanese political forces … to translate their statements of condemnation into concrete action”, including diplomatic pressure.
In the months since the ceasefire, Israeli strikes in Lebanon have killed at least 190 people and wounded nearly 500 more, the Lebanese government said in April.
Under the ceasefire agreement, the Lebanese military has been tasked with disarming Hezbollah – a political party and paramilitary group once believed to be more heavily armed than the state.
But following Thursday’s attack, Lebanon’s army warned that such attacks are weakening its role in the ceasefire. It added that Israel rejected its proposal to inspect the alleged drone production sites in southern Beirut in order to prevent an air strike.
“The Israeli enemy violations of the deal and its refusal to respond to the committee is weakening the role of the committee and the army,” the military said in a statement.
It added that continued Israeli attacks could lead the army to freeze its cooperation with the monitoring committee “when it comes to searching posts” and dismantling Hezbollah infrastructure near the Israeli border in southern Lebanon.
The war between Israel and Hezbollah re-erupted in the wake of Israel’s war on Gaza in October 2023, as the Lebanese group launched cross-border attacks on northern Israel in solidarity with Hamas.
Subsequent Israeli attacks on Lebanon killed more than 4,000 people, including hundreds of civilians, before the ceasefire was signed. Hezbollah rocket fire in Israel killed a reported 87 Israeli military personnel and 46 civilians.
A series of Israeli strikes have targeted Beirut’s southern suburbs on the eve of the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday, almost an hour after the Israeli army issued a forced evacuation order to residents in areas that it says held underground facilities used by the Lebanese group Hezbollah for drone production.
The attack on Thursday is the fourth time Israel has bombed Beirut since a ceasefire with Hezbollah went into effect in November. It has carried out assassinations and announced strikes that it said targeted Hezbollah sites.
Israel has violated the ceasefire on a near-daily basis for seven months, according to the Lebanese government led by President Joseph Aoun, Arab nations, and rights groups. Aoun has recently appealed to the United States and France to rein Israel in.
Aoun, in a statement on Thursday after the strikes, voiced “firm condemnation of the Israeli aggression” and “flagrant violation of an international accord… on the eve of a sacred religious festival”.
Before the attacks, Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee had ordered residents living near buildings in the neighbourhoods of Hadath, Haret Hreik and Burj al-Barajneh in the Dahiyeh suburbs to evacuate.
“You are next to infrastructure belonging to Hezbollah,” Adraee said in a social media post, which included a map of the eight buildings being targeted in four different locations. The message in Arabic indicated that Israel would soon bomb the area.
After the evacuation order, Lebanese media reported the area was nearly emptied of inhabitants, who had been preparing to celebrate Eid al-Adha. It was sealed off as “warning strikes” could be heard, the reports said.
Later Thursday night, the Israeli military also warned residents of the southern Lebanese village of Ain Qana to stay away from two buildings that appear set to be targeted. Ain Qana is located to the east of the coastal city of Sidon.
‘A lot of panic’
Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Beirut, in the immediate aftermath of the strikes said, “There was heavy traffic here as people were making their way out. As you can imagine, this did cause a lot of panic. This is not the first time the army has carried out air strikes in Beirut’s southern suburbs since a ceasefire came into force last November, but this is the largest attack.”
Khodr said up to eight buildings were targeted in four densely populated neighbourhoods, adding that the magnitude of these air strikes, meant all the area’s residents had to flee.
Analyst Rami Khouri told Al Jazeera that the attack was “no surprise”, as Israel has been assassinating people over the last three, four months. They’ve continued occupying five places in South Lebanon after the ceasefire agreement.”
“The Israelis have always used military force as their main instrument to get their foes to submit to them,” he said. “But the irony is that it hasn’t worked. It has only generated great dissent, and we’ll have to see in Lebanon what it means … Hezbollah took a hit last year, and they’re obviously regrouping,” he said. “We don’t know exactly what they’re doing, but they are regrouping,” he added.
Video verified by Al Jazeera’s Sanad agency showed people hurrying away after the evacuation warning:
The Israeli military accused Hezbollah of manufacturing drones in the area in a “blatant violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon”.
A Hezbollah official denied that there were drone production facilities at the targeted locations.
The Israeli military “will work to remove any threat to the State of Israel and its citizens and prevent any attempt to reestablish the terrorist organization Hezbollah”, the military said.
“If you talk to people here, what they will tell you is that this is terrorism,” said Khodr, as “Israel warns people to leave in the middle of the night and on the eve of a major religious holiday.”
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam also issued a statement condemning the strikes. He called on the international community to deter Israel from “continuing its aggressions” and compel it to fully withdraw from Lebanese territory.
The 14-month war between Israel and Hezbollah killed more than 4,000 people in Lebanon, including hundreds of civilians. The Lebanese government said in April that Israeli strikes had killed another 190 people and wounded nearly 500 since the ceasefire.
A stunning Mediterranean country featuring golden sand, beach clubs, and ubiquitous history is ‘redesigning’ the way it approaches tourism following an explosive conflict
The country says it is ‘redesigning tourism’(Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
Boasting 139 miles of pristine Mediterranean coastline, luxury holiday resorts, and 32C temperatures – this ‘beautiful’ country could easily be mistaken for Greece.
Last year, a staggering 1.31 million tourists flocked to Lebanon, lured in by the country’s ancient ruins, golden sandy beaches, and stunning architecture. The influx marks a 32.1 per cent decrease in visitor numbers compared to 2023, which can largely be attributed to the conflict between Israel and Lebanese Hizballah.
However, after a ceasefire came into force on November 27, 2024, Lebanon has been grappling to restore its image as a holiday destination. Laura Lahoud, the country’s Minister of Tourism, says Lebanon is entering a ‘new chapter’ – adding: “We are redesigning the tourism journey to meet modern expectations. This includes higher hospitality standards and consistent, transparent pricing. For Gulf visitors in particular, we are encouraging medical, wellness, and cultural offerings that reflect their current expectations, grounded in authenticity, not nostalgia.”
The FCDO changed its travel advice on Lebanon earlier this year(Image: Getty Images)
On March 27, the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO) updated its advice for Lebanon – removing the strict warning to avoid travelling to the entire country. Now, the body advises against all travel to areas in Beirut and Mount Lebanon Governorate – including the following neighbourhoods:
Tariq el Jdideh
Bir Hassan (excluding the Rafiq Hariri Hospital and the Ministry of Public Health)
Ghobeiry
Chiayah (south of the Rizkallah Semaan Road and west of (but not including) the Old Saida Road)
Haret Hraik
Burj Al Barajneh
Mraije
Laylake
The FCDO’s map also shows long stretchers of the country that have an ‘advise against all but essential travel’ warning.This includes spots such as Jezzine, Zgharta, Bcharre, Sidon, and Kfaroue. However, much of the coastline has now turned green – which means tourists can visit but should check the FCDO’s advice before travelling.
Many parts of the country are still under a ‘do not travel’ warning(Image: FCDO)
Under its ‘Safety and Security’ page, the FCDO highlights multiple risks tourists should consider if visiting the country, including potential terrorist attacks, crime, drug smuggling, and sexual assault. “The Lebanese Criminal Code includes a general provision concerning ‘every sexual act against nature’,” the FCDO adds. “Lebanese courts might consider that this includes same-sex sexual activity. A criminal offence under this provision is punishable by a prison sentence of up to a year.”
Despite the barrage of warnings, travel enthusiasts are still flocking to the country – desperate to show its more luxurious side. Last year, TikTok account Wanderlust Family shared a video of their trip to Lebanon, comparing it to the insatiably popular country of Greece.
Travel influencers are plugging Lebanon as a holiday destination – comparing it to Greece(Image: Getty Images)
“Be honest, how many of you thought Lebanon was so beautiful?” the account wrote. “The news gives you a whole wrong picture of this beautiful country! The Lebanese love to party and if you’re travelling to Lebanon, you absolutely have to visit a beach club.”
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Hundreds of viewers flocked to the comments section to hail Lebanon’s beauty, with one user writing: “Even as a Greek, I can easily say Lebanon has the most beautiful people and the best food. I can’t wait to go back.” Another said: “I literally want to go so bad,” while a third added: “Wow, so beautiful.”
Beirut, Lebanon – As southern Lebanon continues to suffer from sporadic Israeli attacks despite a ceasefire signed in November between Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah, establishment parties have emerged as the biggest winners of municipal elections.
Voting took place over four weeks, starting in Mount Lebanon – north of the capital, Beirut – followed by the country’s northern districts, Beirut and the eastern Bekaa Valley, and concluding on Saturday in southern Lebanon.
While Hezbollah, a Shia Muslim political and armed group, suffered setbacks to its political influence and military capabilities during 14 months of war with Israel, the group’s voter base was still intact and handed it and Amal, its closest political ally, victories across dozens of municipalities.
“The Hezbollah-Amal alliance has held firm and support among the Shia base has not experienced any dramatic erosion,” Imad Salamey, a professor of political science at the Lebanese American University, told Al Jazeera.
Despite establishment parties winning the majority of seats across the country, candidates running on campaigns of political reform and opposition to the political establishment also made inroads in some parts of the country, even winning seats in municipalities in southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah historically has enjoyed strong support.
In Lebanon, there is no unified bloc of reformists although political actors and groups that emerged during the 2019 antigovernment protests over the economic crisis are referred to locally as “el-tagheyereen”, or change makers.
“Alternative Shia candidates in some localities were able to run without facing significant intimidation, signalling a limited but growing space for dissent within the community,” Salamey said.
The fact the elections were held at all will be seen as a boon to the pro-reform government of Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, who came to power in January, say analysts. The polls, initially set for 2022, were delayed three times due to parliamentary elections, funding issues and the war with Israel, which started in October 2023.
Critics, however, argued the elections favoured established parties because the uncertainty over when they would be held meant candidates waited to build their campaigns. As recently as March, there were still proposals to delay the elections until September to give candidates a chance to prepare their platforms after Lebanon suffered through the war and a two-month intensification by Israel from September to November, which left the country needing $11bn for recovery and reconstruction, according to the World Bank.
Lebanon needs about $11bn for reconstruction and recovery, according to the World Bank [Raghed Waked/Al Jazeera]
The war left Hezbollah politically and militarily battered after Israel killed much of its leadership, including longtime Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and his successor Hachem Safieddine.
The war reordered the power balance in Lebanon, diminishing Hezbollah’s influence. Many villages in southern Lebanon are still inaccessible, and Israel continues to occupy five points of Lebanese territory that it has refused to withdraw from after the ceasefire. It also continues to attack other parts of the south, where it claims Hezbollah still has weapons.
With their villages still destroyed or too dangerous to access, many southerners cast ballots in Nabatieh or Tyre, an act that recalls the 18-year Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon that ended in 2000. During the occupation, elections for southern regions under Israeli control were also held in other cities still under Lebanese sovereignty.
Hezbollah has given up the majority of its sites in the south to the Lebanese army, a senior western diplomat told Al Jazeera and local media has reported.
The recent post-war period also brought to power a new president, army commander Joseph Aoun, and the reform camp’s choice for prime minister, Salam, former president of the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Hezbollah remains ‘strong’
Municipal elections are not seen as an indicator of the country’s popular sentiment due to low voter interest and local political dynamics differing from those at the national level. Some analysts dismissed the results, calling them “insignificant” and added that next year’s parliamentary elections would more accurately reflect which direction the country is headed.
Voter turnout was lower in almost every part of the country compared with 2016, the last time municipal elections took place. The places it fell included southern Lebanon, where 37 percent of the population voted. In 2016, 48 percent of its voters cast ballots. This was also true in most of the Bekaa Valley, an area that also was hit hard during the war and where Hezbollah tends to be the most popular party. In the north, voter turnout dropped from 45 percent in 2016 to 39 percent in 2025. In Beirut, the turnout was marginally higher – 21 percent in 2025 compared with 20 percent in 2016.
Many people in southern Lebanon are still living through the war as Israel continues to carry out attacks on areas like Nabatieh. While some in and from the south have questioned Hezbollah’s standing and decision to enter into a war with Israel on behalf of Gaza when they fired rockets on the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms territory on October 8, 2023, others still cling to their fervent support for the group.
A woman holds up a picture of late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli air strike last year, at a public funeral in Beirut on February 23, 2025 [Mohammed Yassin/Reuters]
“The municipal elections confirmed that Hezbollah and the Amal Movement remain strong,” Qassem Kassir, a journalist and political analyst believed to be close to Hezbollah, told Al Jazeera. “The forces of change are weak, and their role has declined. The party [Hezbollah] maintains its relationship with the people.”
Although reform forces did win some seats, including in Lebanon’s third largest city, Sidon, they were largely at a disadvantage due to a lack of name familiarity, the short campaign time and misinformation circulated by politically affiliated media.
Claims of corruption and contested election results marred voting in parts of the north, where many candidates from traditional political parties dominated.
In Beirut, forces for change were dealt a heavy blow. After receiving about 40 percent of the vote in 2016, which still was not enough to earn them a municipal seat, the reformist Beirut Madinati (Beirut My City) list won less than 10 percent of this year’s vote.
The defeat took place despite the worsening living conditions in the capital, which critics blamed on establishment parties, including those running the municipality.
“The municipality lives on another planet, completely detached from the concerns of the people,” Sarah Mahmoud, a Beirut Madinati candidate, told Al Jazeera on May 18 on the streets of Beirut as people went out to vote.
Since an economic crisis took hold in 2019, electricity cuts have become more common, and diesel generators have plugged the gap. These generators contribute to air pollution, which has been linked to cardiovascular and respiratory ailments in Beirut and carries cancer risks.
Despite the criticisms and degraded living situation in the city, a list of candidates backed by establishment figures and major parties, including Hezbollah and Amal, but also their major ideological opponents, including the Lebanese Forces and the right-wing Kataeb Party, won 23 out of 24 seats.
This list ran on a platform that stoked fears of sectarian disenfranchisement and promised sectarian parity.
Municipalities, unlike Lebanon’s parliament, do not have sectarian quotas.
Smoke rises from an Israeli strike in the southern Lebanese town of Toul on May 22, 2025[Ali Hankir/Reuters]
‘What are you fighting for?’
The unlikely coalition of establishment parties, which was similar to the successful list in 2016 that aligned establishment parties against reform candidates, puzzled some in the capital. In separate incidents, television reporters confronted representatives from Hezbollah and the Lebanese Forces, drawing angry and confrontational reactions from them but little clarification as to why they’d align with an avowed enemy.
Bernard Bridi, a media adviser for the list, said its priority was to bring in a foreign consultancy that would advise the municipality on how to manage Beirut like other major international capitals. She added that the opposing parties decided to unify because the stakes are so high this year after years of economic suffering, particularly since the war.
Critics, however, accused the establishment parties of trying to keep power concentrated among themselves rather than let it fall to reformists who could threaten the system that has consolidated power in the hands of a few key figures and groups in the post-civil war era.
“The question is what are you fighting for,” Karim Safieddine, a political organiser with Beirut Madinati, said, referring to the establishment list. “And if they can tell me what they’re fighting for, I’d be grateful.”
Now the nation’s eyes will turn to May next year as parties and movements are already preparing their candidates and platforms for parliamentary elections.
In 2022, just more than a dozen reform candidates emerged from Lebanon’s economic crisis and subsequent popular uprising. Some speculated that the reform spirit has subsided since thousands of Lebanese have emigrated abroad – close to 200,000 from 2018 to 2021 alone – and others have grown disillusioned at a perceived lack of immediate change or disagreements among reform-minded figures.
Many Lebanese will also have last year’s struggles during the war and need for reconstruction in mind when heading to the polls next year.
Some have started to question or challenge Hezbollah’s longtime dominance after seeing the group so badly weakened by Israel. Others are doubling down on their support due to what they said is neglect by the new government and their belief that Hezbollah is the only group working in their interests.
“Taken together, these developments imply a future trajectory where Shia political support for Hezbollah remains solid but increasingly isolated,” Salamey explained, “while its broader cross-sectarian coalition continues to shrink, potentially reducing Hezbollah’s influence in future parliamentary elections to that of a more pronounced minority bloc.”
People watch the sky anxiously during an Israeli drone strike after moving away from buildings in Dahiyeh in Beirut’s southern suburbs on September 29, 2024 [Murat Şengul/Anadolu Agency]
Beirut, Lebanon – For decades, Palestinian groups in Lebanon have run their affairs themselves. In the refugee camps established for Palestinians displaced by Israel in 1948 and 1967, Palestinian factions have overseen security and many have retained their arms.
Those days, however, appear to be coming to a close. Instead, the Lebanese state is attempting to take advantage of a period of weakness for the Iran-backed group Hezbollah, as it struggles to regroup from its war with Israel, to exercise its power over the country.
Lebanon’s new government – formed in February and led by former International Court of Justice judge Nawaf Salam – has the backing of regional and international powers to disarm all non-state actors. That includes the many Palestinian groups that have carried arms since a 1969 agreement that allowed them to have autonomy in the 12 official Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.
And on Wednesday, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas gave his blessing during a visit to Lebanon. A joint statement from Abbas and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun declared that both sides had agreed that the existence of “weapons outside the control of the Lebanese state has ended”.
“Abu Mazen [Abbas] came to say that we are guests in Lebanon and not above Lebanese authority,” Mustafa Abu Harb, an official with Fatah, the largest political faction in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), told Al Jazeera. “We do not accept weapons in the hands of anyone other than the Lebanese state.”
Is Hamas on board?
Abbas, on his first trip to Lebanon since 2017, also met Prime Minister Salam and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri to discuss the challenging prospect of disarming Palestinian factions in Lebanon and improving the rights and conditions of the estimated 270,000 Palestinians in the country.
Palestinians in Lebanon do not have the legal right to work in a number of professions, they may not own property or businesses and cannot access public service employment or the use of public services, such as healthcare and social security, according to UNRWA, the United Nations body created in 1948 for Palestinian refugees.
“We reaffirm our previous position that the presence of weapons in the camps outside the framework of the state weakens Lebanon and also harms the Palestinian cause,” Abbas said in the meeting with Aoun, according to the Palestinian state news agency Wafa.
However, questions remain as to whether the divisive Abbas, who has not faced an election since 2005, has the authority to disarm the different Palestinian groups.
A senior Hamas official in Lebanon, Ali Barakeh, told the AFP news agency on Wednesday that he hoped the talks between Abbas and Aoun would go further than just Palestinian groups’ disarmament.
“We affirm our respect for Lebanon’s sovereignty, security and stability, and at the same time, we demand the provision of civil and human rights for our Palestinian people in Lebanon,” Barakeh said.
Hamas, which – along with Hezbollah – is considered part of the wider Iranian-allied “axis of resistance” network, has already cooperated with the Lebanese state on at least one occasion since the ceasefire with Israel. In May, the Palestinian group handed over a fighter suspected of firing rockets at Israel, according to the Lebanese army, and called them “individual acts”.
The group has also said it respects the ceasefire and is willing to work with the Lebanese state.
Abbas made his first visit to Beirut in eight years, where he met with Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun [File: Zain Jaafar/AFP]
‘Not our president’
Over the course of his two-decade reign, Abbas’s popularity among Palestinians in Lebanon has sharply eroded.
That lack of support can be seen in the Palestinian camps in Lebanon, where posters of Abbas’s predecessor, Yasser Arafat, as well as Hamas’s spokesperson, Abu Obeida, can be seen far more than those of the PA leader.
“None of the Palestinians, except Fatah, claim that he’s our president,” Majdi Majzoub, a community leader in Beirut’s largest Palestinian refugee camp, Shatila, said. “This president doesn’t honour us and doesn’t represent us because he supports the occupation and adopts the occupation’s decisions.”
Aside from Abbas’s unpopularity, other factors may lead to a pushback against any attempt to disarm Palestinian groups in Lebanon.
Nicholas Blanford, a nonresident senior fellow with the US-based think tank Atlantic Council, said it “could be interpreted as a win for the Israelis if the Palestinians … were obliged to give [their weapons] up”.
Blanford also pointed out that defenders of the continued presence of armed Palestinian groups in Lebanon point to events such as the Sabra and Shatila massacre, when between 2,000 and 3,500 Palestinian refugees and Lebanese civilians were killed over two days by right-wing Christian nationalist forces with Israeli support in 1982.
Blanford, however, believes that the consensus is moving towards the disarmament of at least heavy weaponry from the Palestinian factions in Lebanon, and that some Palestinians welcome the move.
“We as a Palestinian people certainly welcome [the initiative] because things have changed,” Majzoub said.
Majzoub said bad-faith actors have taken advantage of the Lebanese state’s lack of authority over the Palestinian camps to avoid being held accountable for crimes.
Israeli attacks on Lebanon continue despite a ceasefire [File: Rabih Daher/AFP]
Lebanon’s armed forces rarely enter the Palestinian refugee camps.
In 2007, the army besieged the Nahr al-Bared camp in north Lebanon and clashed with the Fatah al-Islam group, which was based in the camp. Hundreds died in the battle, which left large swaths of the camp uninhabitable.
The Lebanese army has also, on occasion, infiltrated camps to arrest individuals.
The security situation can at times be tense in the camps, as it is in other parts of Lebanon.
On Monday, local media reported that armed clashes between rival drug dealers in Beirut’s Shatila camp forced residents to flee.
Among the worst incidents in the past few years were the large-scale battles that erupted in the summer of 2023 between armed groups in Ein el-Hilweh camp, in southern Lebanon, after a botched assassination attempt on a Fatah official. More than two dozen people were killed in the fighting before a ceasefire was negotiated.
Carrying weapons in the camps was once seen as a right of resistance. But after more than seven decades of displacement and insecurity, some Palestinians in Lebanon today feel that carrying arms is undercutting their struggle for liberation.
“Palestinian weapons have become a threat to the Palestinian revolution,” Majzoub said. “Now, it is better for us to live under the protection of the Lebanese state.”
A young man holds a Palestinian flag with a slogan on it during a protest to condemn Israel’s military operations in the Gaza Strip, on Beirut’s corniche, in Lebanon, April 7, 2025 [Bilal Hussein/AP Photo]
Despite war losses, Hezbollah is using the vote as an opportunity to show it still has political influence.
Voters in southern Lebanon are casting their ballots in municipal elections seen as a test of support for Hezbollah, a Shia Muslim political and armed group.
The vote on Saturday in the mostly Shia area, where Hezbollah is allied with Amal – the party led by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri – marks the final phase of Lebanon’s staggered local elections.
It comes after a November 2024 ceasefire between the group and Israel was supposed to end months of attacks. lsrael, however, has continued sporadic strikes as recently as on Thursday, when air raids hit multiple locations in the south.
Both Hezbollah and Amal are widely expected to dominate the municipal races, having already secured control of numerous councils unopposed.
Turnout was high in border villages ravaged by last year’s conflict, with residents of Kfar Kila – a town nearly levelled by Israeli attacks – voting in nearby Nabatieh. Others from surrounding areas cast ballots in Tyre.
“The will of life is stronger than death and the will of construction is stronger than destruction,” Lebanese President Joseph Aoun told reporters on Saturday, as he made a tour of the country’s south. He said he voted for the first time in 40 years in his hometown of Aaichiyeh.
Among those heading to the polls were Hezbollah members still recovering from a series of Israeli attacks in September 2024, when thousands of pagers exploded nearly simultaneously, killing more than a dozen people and wounding nearly 3,000.
“Southerners are proving again that they are with the choice of resistance,” Hezbollah legislator Ali Fayyad, who represents border villages, said in Nabatieh.
Hezbollah still holding political influence
The vote comes at a critical time for Hezbollah. While the group emerged from the conflict with reduced military capabilities and diminished political leverage, the elections offer a platform to reaffirm its influence in the region.
“Lebanon has still not fully recovered from last year’s war between Hezbollah and Israel. In fact, Israel continues to target Hezbollah despite a ceasefire,” said Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Nabatieh.
“Hezbollah, no doubt was militarily weakened during the conflict; it lost a lot of its military power but it is using these elections as an opportunity to show that it still has political influence,” Khodr added.
Many feel Hezbollah failed to shield them during the war, yet fears of isolation persist, she said. “They feel vulnerable … not just towards Israel, but also in a deeply divided country and they feel that opponents of Hezbollah are also marginalising the community as a whole.”
Lebanon’s new government has pledged to create a state monopoly on arms, raising pressure on Hezbollah to disarm as required under the United States-brokered truce with Israel.
Lebanon now faces the massive task of rebuilding after 14 months of war, with the World Bank estimating its reconstruction needs at more than $11bn.
In October 2023, Hezbollah launched a rocket campaign on Israel in support of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, which was being bombarded by Israel following a surprise attack led by Palestinian group Hamas.
Israel responded with shelling and air attacks on Lebanon that escalated into a full-blown war before the ceasefire went into effect in late November.
Process launched after visit by Palestinian President Abbas, who said weapons ‘hurt’ Lebanon and Palestine cause.
A joint Lebanese-Palestinian committee tasked with the removal of weapons held by Palestinian factions in Lebanon’s refugee camps has met for the first time to begin hashing out a timetable for disarming the groups.
The Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee, a government body serving as interlocutor between Palestinian refugees and officials, met on Friday with Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam in attendance.
The group said that “participants agreed to launch a process for the disarmament of weapons according to a specific timetable”.
It added that it also aimed to take steps to “enhance the economic and social rights of Palestinian refugees”.
A Lebanese government source told the news agency AFP that disarmament in the country’s 12 official camps for Palestinian refugees, which host multiple Palestinian factions, including Fatah, its rivals Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and a range of other groups, could begin in mid-June.
Under a decades-old agreement, Lebanese authorities do not control the camps, where security is managed by Palestinian factions.
The meeting comes as the Lebanese government faces increasing international pressure to remove weapons from the Iran-aligned Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, which fought a war with Israel last year.
“The message is clear. There is a new era, a new balance of power, and a new leadership in Lebanon, which is pushing ahead with monopolising arms in the hands of the state,” said Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Beirut.
“It has already begun to dismantle Hezbollah’s military infrastructure in southern Lebanon, and the next phase appears to be the disarmament of Palestinian groups in camps before it addresses the issue of Hezbollah’s weapons in the rest of the country,” she said.
Earlier this week, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas – leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, dominated by his Fatah party, visited Lebanon and said in a speech that the weapons in the camps “hurt Lebanon and the Palestinian cause”.
During Abbas’s visit, he and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun announced an agreement that Palestinian factions would not use Lebanon as a launchpad for any attacks against Israel, and that weapons would be consolidated under the authority of the Lebanese government.
Al Jazeera’s Khodr signalled that several factions appeared to be against disarmement.
“While Abbas’s Palestinian Authority may be recognised internationally as the representative body of the Palestinian people, there are many armed groups, among them, Hamas and [Palestinian] Islamic Jihad, who … believe in armed struggle against Israel,” she said.
“Without consensus among the factions, stability could remain elusive.”
Israeli attacks come as residents of Lebanon’s southern districts prepare to vote in municipal elections on Saturday.
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has denounced a wave of Israeli attacks across southern Lebanon, calling on the international community to pressure Israel to respect a ceasefire reached in November with Lebanese group Hezbollah.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) said on Thursday that the Israeli military struck a building in Toul, a town in the Nabatieh governorate. The army had earlier warned residents to evacuate the area around a building it said was used by Hezbollah.
Lebanese media outlets also reported Israeli bombardment in the towns of Soujod, Touline, Sawanna and the Rihan Mountain – all in the country’s south.
In a statement, Salam’s office said the Israeli attacks come at a “dangerous” time, just days before municipal elections in Lebanon’s southern districts on Saturday.
The contests are expected to be dominated by Hezbollah and its allies, and there have been growing concerns about the safety of voters, especially in border towns, amid the continued Israeli occupation of parts of southern Lebanon.
“Prime Minister Salam stresses that these violations will not thwart the state’s commitment to holding the elections and protecting Lebanon and the Lebanese,” his office said in its statement.
People and civil defence members gather near the site of the Israeli strike in Toul, May 22 [Ali Hankir/Reuters]
As part of the November ceasefire agreement, Hezbollah fighters were to pull back north of the Litani River and dismantle military infrastructure south of that demarcation line.
For its part, Israel was to withdraw all forces from Lebanon but it has kept troops in parts of south Lebanon. It argues it must maintain a presence there for “strategic” reasons.
The truce was based on a UN Security Council resolution that says Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers should be the only people to bear arms in southern Lebanon, and calls for the disarmament of all non-state groups.
On Thursday, the Israeli military said its forces had carried out several strikes targeting Hezbollah sites and killed one fighter in the southern Lebanon town of Rab el-Thalathine.
Hezbollah did not immediately comment on the Israeli army’s claim.
Separately, a shepherd was injured in a different Israeli attack nearby, the NNA reported.
The Israeli military said its forces also “struck a Hezbollah military site containing rocket launchers and weapons” in the Bekaa Valley in northeastern Lebanon.
The NNA described Israel’s attacks as some of the heaviest since the ceasefire went into effect.
Lebanon’s Parliament last month partly lifted banking secrecy laws in a rare move to encourage transparency and revive the nation’s scattered economy.
Since the 2019 financial collapse that brought the war-torn country to its knees, banking sector reform has been a prerequisite for obtaining help from multilateral lending institutions. The new law allows entities, including independent auditors, to directly access banking records from the past decade.
“The banking secrecy bill is a tool,” comments Sibylle Rizk, director of public policies at Kulluna Irada, a Beirut-based think tank. “Now it needs to be used: whether by banking authorities for restructuring the sector, by the judiciary, or by the tax administration.”
Since the 2019 crash, the local currency has dropped 98% in value and most Lebanese cannot access their deposits. Bank losses are estimated at $76 billion, raising the critical question: Who will pay?
Producing an answer that satisfies a multitude of parties now falls partly on Karim Souaid, governor of Banque du Liban since March. Souaid’s nomination was controversial, having allegedly been urged by the banks’ lobby.
On his first day in office, he emphasized the need to “gradually return all bank deposits, starting with small savers.”
But the new governor’s immediate priority must be “to launch banking audits to get an accurate picture of assets and liabilities,” says Rizk. “He also needs to work on a gap resolution framework based on a fair distribution of losses that considers public debt sustainability.” Legal frameworks on bank resolution and loss allocation must be approved by Parliament.
None of these reforms will be easy, she adds, but they are key to unlocking negotiations with the International Monetary Fund, reestablishing the banking sector’s ability to fund economic activity, and taming the cash economy, which has dominated since 2020. Last October, the watchdog Financial Action Task Force (FATF) placed Lebanon on its gray list for money laundering and terrorism financing.
“The Lebanese banking sector must reconnect with the international financial system, rebuild relationships with correspondent banks, regain access to global capital markets, and re-establish credibility,” says Wissam Fattouh, secretary of the Beirut-based Union of Arab Banks.
But to restore their reputation and ensure solvency, Lebanese banks will need new partners. Existing shareholders may increase stakes, but regional and international banks must step in as well.
![This pictures taken from the southern Lebanese area of Marjeyoun shows smoke billowing from the site of Israeli airstrikes on the hills of the southern Lebanese village of Nabatiyeh on May 8, 2025. [Rabih Daher/ AFP]](https://www.occasionaldigest.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/000_44X24T2-1746708607.jpg)
