Illustrative image. (The Israeli Defense Forces)
Israel launched an intensive wave of strikes on southern Lebanon late on March 7, targeting what it claimed to be military sites of Hezbollah.
Lebanon’s National News Agency (ANA) said that more than 20 strikes targeted the Zaghrabin hill in Jabal al-Rayhan in the Jezzine region, the towns of Yatar and Ziqin, a valley in the town of Babliyeh, the town of Tabna, the Marais’ area located between the towns of Ansar and al-Zarariyeh, as well as the al-Hamdaniya area between the towns of Kafrwa and Azza.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that the strikes hit sites used by Hezbollah to store weapons and rocket launchers, adding that the targets posed a threat to Israel.
“The weapons and the rocket launchers in the military sites posed a threat to the State of Israel and constituted a blatant violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon,” the statement reads.
These were the most violent strikes to target Lebanon since the completion of the United States-brokered ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah on February 18. However, there were no reports of any casualties.
Earlier in the day, ANA reported that two civilians from the Hezbollah-linked Jihad al-Bina organization tasked with inspecting the damage caused by previous Israeli strikes on the southern town of Kfar Kila were killed, and a third person of Syrian nationality was critically injured as a result of Israeli forces opening fire on them opposite the town’s wall.
The U.S.-brokered ceasefire put an end to a heated conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that broke out more than a year earlier as a result of the war in the Gaza Strip.
Hezbollah, which lost all of its commanders and took heavy losses during the conflict, has so far refrained from responding to the IDF repeated strikes on Lebanon.
While Israel took some losses during the fighting, which lasted for more than 14 months, there is no doubt that Hezbollah lost deterrence. Now, the IDF is exploiting this new reality to make sure that the group never rebuild its combat capabilities in any part of Lebanon. Hezbollah will likely be able to adapt to this new reality without making some serious changes in its political strategy and its internal structure.
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