DUBAI (Reuters) – Israel said on Thursday it had launched fresh air strikes against Hezbollah military targets in south Lebanon to stop the militant group rebuilding in the area.
The U.S. brokered a truce in November between Lebanon and Israel after more than a year of conflict sparked by the war in Gaza, but Israel has continued sporadically to attack Iranian-backed Hezbollah across the border.
Israel’s military confirmed in a statement that unspecified attacks were underway after earlier saying it would hit Hezbollah military infrastructure “in response to the group’s unlawful attempts to rebuild its activities in the area.”
It warned residents of three villages to evacuate.
Lebanon’s state news agency NNA confirmed strikes in the area. There was no immediate reaction from Hezbollah, or word on any damage or casualties.
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said the evacuation warning contradicted international peace efforts.
Lebanon’s government was committed to halting hostilities and engaged in meetings to ensure implementation of a U.N. resolution that ended a round of conflict between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006, Salam said in a post on X.
Lebanon is under pressure from the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Hezbollah’s domestic rivals to disarm the group.
Hezbollah has said it would be a serious misstep even to discuss disarmament while Israel is continuing airstrikes on Lebanon and occupying swaths of territory in its south.
(Reporting by Enas Alashray, Elwely Elwelly and Yomna Ehab, Editing by Timothy Heritage and Andrew Cawthorne)
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