NABATIYEH – Israeli forces carried out several new drone and artillery strikes in Lebanon on Tuesday, including a deadly strike that the Health Ministry and state media said killed one person, further shaking a tenuous ceasefire meant to end more than a year of fighting with Hezbollah.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed keep striking “with an iron fist” against perceived Hezbollah violations of the truce. His defense minister warned that if the ceasefire collapses, Israel will target not just Hezbollah but the Lebanese state — an expansion of Israel’s campaign.
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Israel also carried out an airstrike in Syria, saying it killed a senior member of Hezbollah responsible for coordinating with Syria’s army on rearming and resupplying the Lebanese militant group. Israel has repeatedly hit Hezbollah targets in Syria, but Tuesday's attack was a rare public acknowledgement. Syrian state media reported that an Israeli drone strike hit a car in a suburb of the capital Damascus, killing one person.
Since the two-month ceasefire in Lebanon began last Wednesday, the U.S.- and French-brokered deal has been rattled by near daily Israeli attacks, although Israel has been vague about the purported Hezbollah violations that prompted them.
On Monday, it was shaken by its biggest test yet. Hezbollah fired two projectiles toward an Israeli-held disputed border zone, its first volley since the ceasefire began, saying it was a “warning” in response to Israel’s strikes. Israel responded with its heaviest barrage of the past week, killing 10 people.
On Tuesday, drone strikes hit four places in southern Lebanon, one of them killing a person in the town of Shebaa, the state-run National News Agency said. The Health Ministry confirmed the death.
Asked about the strike, the Israeli military said its aircraft struck a Hezbollah militant who posed a threat to troops. Shebaa is situated within a region of border villages where the Israeli military has warned Lebanese civilians not to return, with Israeli troops still present.
Israeli forces fired an artillery shell at one location and opened fire with small arms toward a town, the news agency reported.
With Tuesday’s death, Israeli strikes since the ceasefire began have killed at least 15 people.
Under the terms of the ceasefire, Hezbollah is supposed to withdraw its fighters, weapons and infrastructure from a broad swath of the south by the end of the initial 60-day phase, pulling them north of the Litani River. Israeli troops are also to pull back to their side of the border.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said any violations of the agreement would be met with “a maximum response and zero tolerance.”
Speaking to troops on Israel’s northern border Tuesday, he said if the war resumes, Israel will widen its strikes beyond the areas where Hezbollah’s activities are concentrated, and “there will no longer be an exemption for the state of Lebanon.”
The ceasefire ended 14 months of war between Israel and Hezbollah, capped by an intensified Israeli bombardment since late September and ground invasion that killed hundreds of Hezbollah members and civilians in Lebanon and sent more than 1.4 million fleeing their homes. Throughout that fighting, Israel largely refrained from striking critical infrastructure or the Lebanese armed forces, who kept to the sidelines.
Israel has said its aim is to push Hezbollah away from the border to allow the return home of tens of thousands of Israelis forced to evacuate from the north since Hezbollah began firing into Israel in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza.
“At the moment we are in a ceasefire, I note — a ceasefire, not the end of the war. We have a clear goal to return the residents, to rehabilitate the north,” Netanyahu said at the start of the government meeting Tuesday.
“We are enforcing this ceasefire with an iron fist, acting against any violation, minor or major,” he said.
Lebanese officials have accused Israel of violating the ceasefire dozens of times with strikes, overflights of drones and demolitions of homes. When Israel has issued statements about its strikes, it says they were done because of “hostile” actions by Hezbollah that posed a “threat to Israeli civilians,” without specifying their nature.
Tens of thousands of Lebanese who fled Israel's bombardment in the past months quickly returned to parts of the south after the ceasefire went into effect. In the southern city of Nabatiyeh, bulldozers cleared streets strewn with rubble and debris from destroyed buildings, and electricians worked on fixing power cables in an effort to restore electricity.
Imad Yassin returned to find his clothing store destroyed. He hopes the state will provide compensation so he can rebuild.
“Netanyahu is trying to displace us as southern Lebanon citizens,” he said. But like many others, he had little faith Israel would abide by the ceasefire.
Hussein Badreddin, a vegetable seller who also returned, said Israel was not committed to the truce.
“The Israelis are breaching the ceasefire whenever they can,” he said.
Israel says that under the truce deal, it has the right to retaliate for Hezbollah violations.
Speaking to reporters in Washington, U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Vedant Patel would not discuss individual allegations of violations.
“We believe the ceasefire continues to be largely holding in place,” he said.
The U.S. military announced last week that Maj. Gen. Jasper Jeffers alongside senior U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein will co-chair a U.S.-led committee that is supposed to monitor the ceasefire and ensure adherence to it. The committee also includes France, the U.N. peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon known as UNIFIL, Lebanon, and Israel.
Hochstein led over a year of shuttle diplomacy to broker the ceasefire deal, and his role will be temporary until a permanent civilian co-chair is appointed.
Under the deal, the Lebanese army and UNIFIL are to increase their presence in south Lebanon to ensure Hezbollah does not return.
The Lebanese army, which is supported by the U.S. but has suffered severe financial strains in recent years, launched a recruitment drive Tuesday. The military currently has about 80,000 troops, with around 5,000 of them deployed in the south.
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Abou AlJoud reported from Beirut. Associated Press writer Matthew Lee in Washington contributed.