Israel’s military said early Tuesday it had deployed additional troops in southern Lebanon to establish “defensive positions” aimed at shielding northern Israel from Hezbollah attacks, while Reuters reported that the Lebanese army withdrew from seven posts along the border area with Israel.
The move marks a sharp escalation on the Lebanon-Israel front after months of relative calm under a ceasefire framework, as both sides expanded military action and widened targets.
Hezbollah resumed attacks on Sunday night, firing rockets and drones at military sites inside Israel. The group said it was acting in support of Iran and in retaliation for the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Israel responded with wide-scale airstrikes across Lebanon.
Israel said its forces were operating in southern Lebanon as part of an “enhanced forward defense posture,” and Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said he had approved, in coordination with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, an advance to seize additional high ground inside Lebanese territory after Hezbollah’s rocket fire.
Israel still occupies five sites in southern Lebanon and refused to withdraw from them in February 2025, when it pulled its forces out of nine villages under the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah.
Katz said Israel’s military “continues to carry out intensive military operations against Hezbollah targets,” warning the group would pay “a heavy price,” and said the purpose of taking additional positions was to prevent direct fire on towns along the border.
Separately, Israel said it assassinated Reza Khazaei, describing him as the official in charge of Hezbollah’s “military buildup” file on behalf of the Quds Force. It said the navy carried out a strike on Beirut on Monday night, directed by military intelligence, killing him.
Israel described Khazaei as the “right-hand man” of the commander of the Lebanon Corps and said he played a pivotal role in building Hezbollah’s strength and coordinating the transfer of weapons from Iran to Lebanon, including rebuilding capabilities after the “Northern Arrows” operation Israel launched on Sept. 23, 2024, according to China’s Xinhua Arabic service.
Israel also killed the Palestinian Islamic Jihad commander in the Lebanese arena, Adham Adnan Al-Othman.
Lebanon’s disaster management unit said the death toll from Israeli strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs rose to 52 killed and 154 wounded. Tens of thousands have been displaced with Israel ordering the residents of more than 50 villages to leave their homes. The health ministry had earlier reported 31 killed and 149 wounded.
Responding to the strikes, Hezbollah said Tuesday it targeted three Israeli military bases: the Ramat David air base, the Meron surveillance and air-operations management base in northern Israel, and the Nafah base in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights.
The attacks were Hezbollah’s first on Israel since the November 2024 ceasefire that ended more than a year of hostilities, despite the continued Israeli violations through repeated strikes in Lebanon, which Israel has justified as retaliation for “Hezbollah terrorist shelling.”
Hezbollah had previously opened a support front for Hamas against the Israeli military after Al-Aqsa Flood. That confrontation ran from October 2023 through the end of 2024, costing the group many senior and mid-level commanders and a large share of its weapons stockpile, before the November 2024 ceasefire halted the fighting.
