IDF fighter jets carry out overnight strikes on Hezbollah sites in Beqaa Valley
Military says targets ‘posed a threat to Israeli home front and troops,’ included a military facility and sites at border crossings with Syria
Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent

Israeli fighter jets carried out a series of airstrikes on Hezbollah targets in the Beqaa Valley of eastern Lebanon overnight Thursday, the military said.
The IDF said in a statement Friday morning that the targets, which “posed a threat to the Israeli home front and troops,” included a military facility with an underground weapons manufacturing site and infrastructure at border crossings between Syria and Lebanon which the terror group used to smuggle arms.
The strikes were carried out after Hezbollah launched a surveillance drone at Israel Thursday, which the military says was intercepted. The IDF said the drone was a violation of the ceasefire agreement.
“The (army) continues to remain committed to the ceasefire understandings between Israel and Lebanon, and will not permit any terrorist activity of this kind,” the military said.
No sirens were triggered by the drone incursion, the military noted in its statement, adding: “The IDF will not allow terror activities by the Hezbollah terror organization in Lebanon, and will act to remove any threat to Israel or its citizens.”
It was the first such incident since the ceasefire deal went into effect in late November, after more than a year of fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed terror group. The agreement forbids the terror group from operating south of the Litani River, some 30 kilometers (18 miles) from Israel, and allows Israel to respond to imminent threats.
According to the military, the drone was intercepted by the Israeli Air Force using a ground-based air defense system before it crossed the border into Israel.

The incident came in the wake of an Israeli airstrike on a Hezbollah weapons convoy on Tuesday, and reports — unconfirmed by the military — of an Israeli drone strike on Wednesday.
Hezbollah began firing rockets and drones at Israel’s north, unprovoked, on October 8, 2023 — a day after thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages, sparking the war in Gaza.
After almost a year of tit-for-tat exchanges, Israel launched a major air offensive in September, and a limited ground offensive in October to eliminate Hezbollah leadership, push its forces northward and destroy its assets in villages near the border, which were prepared for the purpose of invading Israel.
Under the US-brokered ceasefire, Israel is mandated to withdraw its forces from southern Lebanon as the Lebanese army deploys there.
Israel had been due to withdraw by January 26, but said it could not do so as the Lebanese army had not yet been able to deploy in those areas, and the US and Lebanon announced Sunday that the deadline had been extended.
AFP contributed to this report.