IDF launches wave of strikes in Lebanon after Hezbollah mortar attack

The Israeli military launched a wave of airstrikes in Lebanon on Monday evening after Hezbollah launched two mortars at the Mount Dov area for the first time since the ceasefire between Israel and the Iran-backed terror group took effect last week.

In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces said fighter jets struck Hezbollah operatives and dozens of rocket launchers and facilities belonging to the terror group across Lebanon.

Hezbollah claimed earlier on Monday that it launched the mortars in response to Israel’s “repeated violations” of the ceasefire deal that took effect last week, and said that it should serve as an “initial warning” over IDF strikes on Lebanon during the truce and the “continued violation of Lebanese airspace by hostile Israeli aircraft.”

The incident — the first fire from Lebanon since the start of the truce — came after the US and France both reportedly warned that Israel was violating parts of the deal, a charge Israel has denied.

The IDF said that the projectiles landed in open areas and did not cause any injuries.

Senior Israeli officials were quick to condemn the Hezbollah attack, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowing a firm response.

“Hezbollah’s firing at Mount Dov constitutes a serious violation of the ceasefire, and Israel will respond forcefully,” he said in a statement. “We are determined to continue to enforce the ceasefire, and to respond to any violation by Hezbollah — a minor one will be treated like a major one.”

Defense Minister Israel Katz also warned of a “harsh response,” writing on X that Israel “promised to act against any violation of the ceasefire by Hezbollah, and that is exactly what we will do.”

In addition to the Hezbollah operatives, rocket launchers, and facilities targeted by fighter jets, the IDF said it struck the launcher used to fire the two mortars at Mount Dov. The site was hit a short while after the attack, according to the army.

“Hezbollah’s launches tonight constitute a violation of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon,” the IDF said in a statement.

“The State of Israel demands that the relevant parties in Lebanon fulfill their responsibilities and prevent Hezbollah’s hostile activity from within Lebanese territory. The State of Israel remains obligated to the fulfillment of the conditions of the ceasefire agreement in Lebanon,” the army added.

Lebanon’s health ministry later said at least nine people were killed in Israeli strikes on two southern villages.

“The Israeli enemy strike on the village of Haris killed five people and injured two, in an initial toll,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that another such attack on Tallousa “killed four people and injured one person.”

Syria’s Sham FM radio, meanwhile, reported that a series of Israeli airstrikes on Monday night targeted border crossings between Lebanon and Syria in the al-Qusayr area.

The IDF had bombed the crossings before, saying that they were being used by Hezbollah to smuggle Iranian weapons into Lebanon.

During a visit to southern Lebanon earlier in the day, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi vowed the military will “attack strongly in the face of Hezbollah’s grave violations, and we will continue to do so.”

“We have plans and goals ready to be activated at any moment,” he added.

Despite the incidents on Monday, US officials said that the ceasefire was still holding.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby acknowledged that there have been “some sporadic strikes” over the last several days, but claims “this was expected” and is still a major decrease from the hundreds of Hezbollah rocket attacks and Israeli counter-strikes that were taking place before the ceasefire came into place.

Kirby noted that the ceasefire included the beefing up of an enforcement mechanism that has already begun responding to events on the ground. The mechanism now includes a US Army general who has been dispatched to the US embassy in Beirut and will work with US civilian representative Amos Hochstein to respond to reported violations in real-time, Kirby said.

The White House spokesperson said Israel and Lebanon remain committed to the ceasefire, but he conceded that it is only one week old, and there is more work to do to ensure that the enforcement mechanism is bolstered.

Pressed on the subject during a subsequent briefing, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller responded similarly, insisting that the ceasefire has not broken down.

He said the US-led enforcement mechanism is still adjudicating claims by both sides of ceasefire violations. “That’s what we’ll do over the coming days and coming months.”

“If we do see violations of the ceasefire, we’ll go to the parties and tell them to knock it off,” Miller said.

The State Department spokesperson declined to comment on reports that Hochstein has reached out to Israel to express concern that Israel is enforcing the ceasefire “too aggressively.”

“Broadly speaking, it is our assessment that despite some of these incidents that we are seeing, the ceasefire is holding,” Air Force Major General Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, also told reporters.

Israel rejected accusations of violating the ceasefire agreement and said that its strikes in recent days have targeted Hezbollah infractions.

The IDF said on Monday that it had carried out several strikes in Lebanon in the past day, following Hezbollah actions “that posed a threat to the State of Israel and violated the understandings between Israel and Lebanon.”

It said that it had struck several military vehicles operating at a Hezbollah missile manufacturing facility in the Beqaa Valley, and additional vehicles at several sites on the Lebanon-Syria border in the Hermel District, which were used by Hezbollah to transport weapons.

“The IDF is deployed in southern Lebanon and acts against any threat that endangers the State of Israel” the military said.

In one incident, the Lebanese army said that an Israeli strike targeted a military bulldozer while it was carrying out fortification work inside the Al-Abbara military base near the border with Syria, wounding one soldier.

The IDF said that it was investigating the incident.

While Israel has insisted that its strikes are legitimate, as they are targeting Hezbollah operatives and infrastructure, the US reportedly warned on Monday that its actions violate the terms of the ceasefire agreement.

US, France said urging Israel to uphold ceasefire

According to Hebrew media reports, US special envoy Amos Hochstein sent a message in which he urged Israel to uphold the agreement. In particular, he cited Israeli drone flights over Beirut.

The Prime Minister’s Office declined to comment on the report, although Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel was “very resolutely enforcing the ceasefire agreement, and every violation is immediately being met with an intense reaction by the IDF.”

The reported message from Hochstein came a day after French diplomatic sources told Hebrew media outlets that France had accused Israel of 52 separate 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.

Although France has not publicly confirmed the report, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot told his Israeli counterpart, Gideon Sa’ar, in a call on Monday morning, that there was a “need for all parties to respect the ceasefire in Lebanon.”

Sa’ar, in response, told Barrot that Israel was not violating the terms of the truce, but is instead “enforcing them in the face of Hezbollah’s violations that require an immediate response in real time.”

According to Sa’ar’s office, he pointed at examples of Hezbollah operatives walking around armed, south of the Litani River, or moving weapons.

“Their mere presence south of the Litani is the most fundamental violation. They must move north!” said Sa’ar, according to the Israeli readout.

He also called on the Lebanese government to “clearly authorize the Lebanese army to carry out the actions required of it under the agreement.”

Israel will not accept a return to the prewar situation in Lebanon, Sa’ar declared.

The ceasefire that came into effect last Wednesday was designed to bring to an end almost 14 months of Hezbollah-initiated fighting.

It stipulates that the IDF has 60 days to withdraw under the deal while the Lebanese army is to gradually take responsibility for southern Lebanon, and an American-led committee will be established to adjudicate complaints regarding potential ceasefire violations, the military said.

Hezbollah forces will leave southern Lebanon, and its military infrastructure will be dismantled, according to the agreement. The US has also reportedly provided a side letter specifying Israel’s rights to respond to any violations of the ceasefire.

Hezbollah began firing into Israel one day after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught in southern Israel, in support of its fellow Iran-backed terror group, drawing Israeli reprisals and leading to the displacement of some 60,000 residents of northern Israel.

Fighting intensified in late September, with Israel killing much of Hezbollah’s leadership and launching a limited ground incursion on October 1 that has seen soldiers search villages for rockets and other arms held by the terror group, and tackle its terror tunnels and other infrastructure.

Agencies contributed to this report.