BEIRUT: Israel carried out intense airstrikes on southern Lebanon early Saturday, killing one person and wounding seven others, in what Lebanese officials called a “flagrant act of aggression” that threatens to destabilize the region only weeks after the Gaza ceasefire.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said the pre-dawn raids struck the village of Msayleh, hitting a site that sold heavy machinery and destroying numerous vehicles. A vegetable-carrying truck passing by at the time was also hit, killing a Syrian driver and injuring another. Six Lebanese civilians, including two women, were among the wounded.
Lebanese Leadership Condemns ‘Blatant Israeli Aggression’
President Joseph Aoun condemned the assault, warning that Israel appeared to be “compensating peace in Gaza with war in Lebanon.”
“Once again, southern Lebanon falls under Israeli fire — without justification or even a pretext,” Aoun wrote on X. “The gravity of this latest aggression lies in the fact that it comes after the ceasefire in Gaza. This raises serious questions about whether Israel is seeking political gain through new killing and destruction.”
The Israeli military claimed the strikes targeted machinery allegedly intended for Hezbollah’s reconstruction of military infrastructure. The bombardment briefly severed a main highway linking Beirut with southern Lebanon, adding to fears of wider escalation.
While the Gaza ceasefire formally covers only the Palestinian enclave, analysts say Israel’s renewed attacks on Lebanon blatantly violate the spirit of regional de-escalation. The strikes come despite a U.S.-brokered understanding that ended the 14-month Israel-Hezbollah war in November 2024.
Lebanese officials and human-rights groups accuse Israel of deliberately “exporting the conflict northward,” using shifting pretexts to justify airstrikes on civilian areas. Critics argue that by extending its operations into Lebanon, Israel is “compensating for its political and military failures in Gaza” — a move that risks dragging the wider Middle East back into war.
The United Nations’ human-rights chief, Volker Türk, recently urged renewed diplomacy to secure a lasting peace in Lebanon, noting that 103 civilians have been killed since the November ceasefire.
The 2023-24 Israel-Hezbollah war left more than 4,000 people dead in Lebanon — including hundreds of civilians — and caused over $11 billion in damage, according to the World Bank. In Israel, 127 people were killed, among them 80 soldiers.
The conflict erupted when Hezbollah began firing rockets across the border on Oct. 8, 2023, a day after a deadly Hamas-led incursion into southern Israel triggered Israel’s devastating Gaza war. Despite multiple diplomatic efforts, Israel’s continuing strikes in Lebanon suggest the ceasefire’s fragile calm remains confined to Gaza — not the region it helped ignite.
