Lebanon sucked deeper into war as Hezbollah, Israel trade blows

BEIRUT/JERUSALEM: Lebanon was pulled deeper into the war in the Middle East on Tuesday as the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah launched missiles at Israel for a second consecutive day and Israel sent troops into the south and carried out waves of airstrikes.

The theatre of numerous conflicts between Israel and Hezbollah, Lebanon was drawn into the spillover from the war between the United States, Israel and Iran on Monday, when the group opened fire with drones and missiles. With dozens of people killed in retaliatory Israeli strikes, Hezbollah’s move to enter the conflict has sharpened long-standing divisions in Lebanon over its status as an armed group - the only Lebanese faction to keep its weapons after the 1975-90 civil war.

The government on Monday took the unprecedented step of outlawing Hezbollah’s military activities. The pro-Hezbollah al-Akhbar newspaper condemned this as a “capitulation to dictates, which could even lead to the outbreak of civil war”.

Israeli strikes sent thick plumes of smoke billowing over Beirut’s Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs and across hilltops in southern Lebanon.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said in a statement he had authorised the military to advance and take control of additional positions in Lebanon, where Israeli troops have held several hilltops since a war with Hezbollah in 2024.

Many thousands of Lebanese have fled homes in areas that bore the brunt of that war. The Israeli military has ordered residents of dozens of south Lebanon villages to evacuate.

“This displacement is harder than the last one,” said Nuzha Salame, a woman sheltering in the city of Sidon after fleeing her village. “Now we’re in hardship and deprivation, and we’re still out in the streets.”

The United Nations said that, by Monday, at least 30,000 people, including 9,000 children, had sought protection in shelters, while many more were expected to join them.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would increase its strikes in Lebanon in response to Hezbollah’s attacks, and said the group was dragging the Lebanese people “into a war that is not theirs”.