Israel Launches Major Lebanon Attacks After Ceasefire in Iran

M.A. Dworkin

Beirut, Lebanon - Israel’s military launched its most powerful attacks on Lebanon, hours after a ceasefire was declared between the U.S. and Iran, killing hundreds of people across the capital of Beirut, southern Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley.

According to reports coming in from various social media sources and Lebanon’s civil defense service, the most recent air strikes killed more than 250 in Lebanon where there have already been more than 1,500 casualties in the five-week old Israeli invasion. 

The terrorist organization, Hezbollah, issued a statement that said they had halted fire on northern Israel after the ceasefire took effect. But the timing of Israel’s attacks affirmed what its leadership said in a recent public statement: Israel remains determined to degrade Hezbollah, even as it allows the U.S. to lead it into talks with Iran, which is  the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah’s patron state. 

President Trump reportedly stated that “Lebanon was not included in the ceasefire deal because of Hezbollah, but that the Lebanon issue would get taken care of.”

The Israeli airstrikes took place directly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office rejected an earlier announcement by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who has been instrumental in negotiating the Iran-U.S. ceasefire, that the deal would include Lebanon. 

According to Lebanese authorities, more than 1.2 million people have been displaced since the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia reopened its fight against Israel last month. An aid worker in Beirut described, “total chaos in the Lebanon capital, with bombs raining down over the city, striking civilian areas with no warning.” 

“These are not targeted attacks,” said Dr. Tania Baban, the Lebanon country Director for the Chicago-based nonprofit Med Global. “My ears are still ringing after a building next to me was hit by bombs.”

The Israeli military said its airstrikes hit 100 targets within ten minutes, striking Hezbollah headquarters, military arrays and command-and-control centers. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claim to have killed  more than 40 Hezbollah militants during strikes that were the result of meticulous planning over months.

In recent weeks the IDF has advanced to strategic positions from which the military said Hezbollah could launch attacks on Israel, south of Lebanon’s coastal city of Tyre, around 5 miles north of Israel’s border. 

Israeli officials have said the IDF is establishing a demilitarized “security zone” in southern Lebanon and would remain deployed there until the threat from Hezbollah is removed. The buffer zone would be controlled with surveillance and firepower, as well as ground troops in areas deemed strategically necessary.

The buffer zone plan involves clearing villages within around four kilometers of the border of Hezbollah infrastructure, and the IDF would establish forward army positions at strategic locations. 

Defense Minister Israel Katz has said he instructed the IDF to raze all buildings in the so-called first line of Lebanese villages close to the Israeli border - except for several Christian communities - to ensure Hezbollah cannot use them to stage attacks on Israel.

The IDf announced that it had deployed a sixth division to southern Lebanon amid the ongoing ground offensive against Hezbollah. In the past week, the 98th Division, an elite formation of paratroopers and commando units, began targeted ground operations aimed at additional objectives in southern Lebanon.  

The IDF has threatened to expand attacks into northern Beirut, which has not historically been associated with Hezbollah or its mostly Shia Muslim supporters. 

“The Hezbollah terrorist organization concentrated its forces in northern Beirut,” the IDF stated. “For years, Hezbollah has used the civilian population as human shields, and it has now begun using non-Shia civilian populations as well.”

Meanwhile, Lebanese government officials and Hezbollah both sought to assure the public that the nation would soon be included in the broader regional treaty. 

Israel is weeks into a sprawling invasion of Lebanon, issuing evacuation orders for Lebanese civilians now covering about 15% of Lebanese territory.  Hezbollah first began to fire rockets and drones over Lebanon’s southern border with Israel in early March 2026, days after Israel and the U.S. began their offensive against Iran. That act of solidarity thrust all of Lebanon into another grinding conflict with Israel less than eighteen months after the U.S negotiated a ceasefire in Israel’s previous offensive against Hezbollah, which caused thousands of Lebanese casualties and a massive displacement crisis.

“Lebanon can’t take it anymore,” one of its citizens complained to a reporter in Beirut. “The country is collapsing economically, and everything is collapsing.”

While casualties are frequent on both sides of the Israeli-Lebanon war, comprehensive official numbers for all Israeli personnel and civilians killed in the current 2026 escalation are not yet finalized, although several IDF soldiers are known to have been killed in recent actions.