IDF strikes Hezbollah amid truce violations; France said accusing Israel of transgressions
As Netanyahu vows to continue ‘intense reaction’ to terror group’s entrenchment in south Lebanon, Paris reportedly says Israel isn’t using agreed mechanisms to enforce ceasefire
The Israel Defense Forces said Sunday that it was continuing to enforce the ceasefire in Lebanon by striking Hezbollah forces violating its terms, as France was said to charge that Jerusalem, too was repeatedly violating the days-old truce.
The IDF is still deployed in much of southern Lebanon, and it has until late January to withdraw under the 60-day ceasefire deal clinched last week that sought to end more than a year of fighting.
Early on Sunday, Israeli jets launched an airstrike over a southern Lebanese border village of Yaroun, while troops shelled other border towns and villages still under Israeli control, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported. Neither the military nor Hezbollah commented on the incidents.
In another incident that the IDF said Sunday took place the previous night, soldiers of the Paratroopers Brigade spotted a group of armed Hezbollah operatives close to a church in southern Lebanon, a site previously known to have been used by the terror group.
The paratroopers opened fire at the gunmen, killing them, the IDF said.
“The terrorists who were eliminated were active in [Hezbollah’s] ground defense, anti-tank and artillery arrays in the area, and took part in the fighting while using the church,” the military said in a statement.
After the operatives were killed, the IDF said soldiers scanned the church Sunday and located a tunnel shaft that was used to store weapons.
צה"ל פעל במהלך היום בעקבות מספר פעולות בלבנון שהיוו איום על מדינת ישראל, תוך הפרת הבנות הסכם הפסקת האש>> pic.twitter.com/bSdK1bsXH8
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) December 1, 2024
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement Sunday that Israel was “very resolutely enforcing the ceasefire agreement, and every violation is immediately being met with an intense reaction by the IDF.” He vowed that this would continue.
Meanwhile, Hebrew media outlets reported on Sunday that, according to French diplomatic sources, France has accused Israel of 52 ceasefire violations.
The sources claimed that although Israel was acting against Hezbollah’s own violations, the IDF did not go through the proper channels to report the Lebanese terror group’s transgressions to the US-led international oversight body, of which France is a member, as required by the terms of the agreement.
Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and the Lebanese military have accused Israel of violating the agreement with daily airstrikes and overflights since the ceasefire went into effect.
The first phase of the ceasefire is a 60-day cessation of hostilities where Hezbollah operatives are supposed to withdraw from southern Lebanon to north of the Litani River and Israeli troops withdraw from southern Lebanon into northern Israel. Lebanese troops are to deploy in large numbers in the south, effectively being the only armed force in control of the south alongside UNIFIL observers.
The ceasefire agreement was aimed at halting 14 months of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, which began when the Iran-backed terror group, unprovoked, began firing into Israel on October 8, 2023, saying it was acting in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. The relentless attacks forced the displacement of some 60,000 residents of northern Israel.
Israel retaliated with airstrikes, and the conflict steadily intensified for nearly a year before Israel ramped up its operations in Lebanon in mid-September, eventually launching a ground operation into Lebanese territory that dismantled much of the terror group’s infrastructure throughout southern Lebanon.
The offensive was launched with the aim of securing the return home of the 60,000 people evacuated from homes in the north of Israel due to the Hezbollah attacks and concerns the terror group — which seeks Israel’s destruction — would carry out an invasion similar to the Hamas onslaught from the Gaza Strip on southern Israel. In that attack, 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken as hostages to Gaza.
Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel since October 2023 resulted in the deaths of 45 civilians. In addition, 76 IDF soldiers and reservists have died in cross-border skirmishes, attacks on Israel, and in the ensuing ground operation launched in southern Lebanon in late September.
The IDF said it had confirmed with high confidence the deaths of 2,500 Hezbollah operatives, though it estimated that number to be closer to 3,500. Around 100 members of other terror groups have also been reported killed in Lebanon.
Images showed Hezbollah holding large funeral ceremonies Friday for dozens of their fighters killed over the past two months.
According to data published by the Lebanese health ministry, 3,823 people have been killed in Israeli actions since October 8, 2023, a figure that does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
