Israel pushes deeper into Lebanon during ceasefire

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Israeli forces have pushed deeper into Lebanon during the ceasefire despite growing frustrations at alleged violations of the deal.

Israel’s incursion on Thursday into Wadi al-Hujeir, 8km north of the UN Blue Line that marks the border between Israel and Lebanon, was accompanied by heavy machine gun fire, according to Lebanese state news, sending residents of nearby villages fleeing.

The incursion pushes beyond the maximum extent of the Israeli ground invasion in this area during the war, said a Lebanese army official.

The Israeli advance comes almost halfway into a 60-day implementation period for the US-brokered ceasefire agreement, which requires both Israel’s military and the Hizbollah militant group to withdraw from southern Lebanon.

The hostilities were triggered in the wake of Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, with Hizbollah firing into Israel in “solidarity” with the Palestinians.

Despite the truce aimed at ending over a year of hostilities, Israeli forces have continued striking what it says are the militant group’s fighters and military assets in the southern region. Lebanese authorities say Israeli forces have killed at least 28 people since the ceasefire began.

Israeli demolition of houses in the occupied border strip, using explosives or bulldozers, has also been a near daily occurrence since the ceasefire came into effect.

Unifil, the UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, has expressed “concern at continuing destruction” by Israeli forces of “residential areas, agricultural land and road networks”. 

“Unifil continues to urge the timely withdrawal of the Israel Defense Forces and the deployment of the Lebanese Armed Forces (in place of Hizbollah) in southern Lebanon, alongside the full implementation of Resolution 1701 as a comprehensive path toward peace,” the statement released on Thursday added.

So far, Israel has only withdrawn from the Lebanese village of Khiam ahead of advancing Lebanese army units tasked with upholding the terms of the deal.

Lebanese prime minister Najib Mikati this week denounced Israel’s “procrastination” in withdrawing from the country, before his government issued a formal protest to the UN Security Council over what it claimed were 816 violations by Israel of the ceasefire, including home demolitions.

The US-led international monitoring mechanism created to troubleshoot any violations of the deal is yet to publicly weigh in on Israel’s military actions.

Israeli officials have maintained that the military operations in southern Lebanon are targeting Hizbollah fighters, weapons caches and underground bunkers and are permitted under the terms of the ceasefire’s two-month implementation period.

During a visit to an Israeli army position inside southern Lebanon on Sunday, Israeli defence minister Israel Katz vowed to “not allow Hizbollah operatives to return to the southern villages and re-establish the terrorist infrastructure” that would threaten northern Israel’s communities.

“If Hizbollah does not withdraw beyond the Litani [river] and tries to violate the ceasefire — we will crush its head,” Katz added.

Hizbollah has so far not responded significantly to Israeli operations in Lebanon, with analysts saying the group is ill-equipped for a resumption of the war after a year of fighting degraded its capabilities and eliminated much of its top leadership.

One western diplomat familiar with Lebanese affairs said the ceasefire would hold due to the militant group being weakened. “Hizbollah will be OK with the ceasefire, it’s not in any position to confront Israel again,” the diplomat added.