Israel Attacks Lebanon Again as Hezbollah Strikes Back With Drones

Civilian toll mounts with 11 killed in a single day. Diplomatic efforts to extend the ceasefire to Lebanon hit a wall

The war in Lebanon is spiraling deeper by the hour. Despite a fragile U.S.-Iran ceasefire that was supposed to pause hostilities across the region, Israeli forces are pressing their advantage in the south, and Hezbollah is hitting back with unprecedented drone swarms and rocket barrages.

Image credits: David Guttenfelder / The New York Times

The result is a bloody stalemate that shows no sign of letting up. At least 11 people, mostly women and children, were killed in Israeli strikes across Lebanon on Sunday alone. The targets are largely civilians, including farmland, residential areas, and vehicles.

The disconnect between the diplomatic backchannel in Islamabad, where U.S. and Iranian negotiators talked for 21 hours and came up empty, and the grinding military reality on Lebanon’s southern border could not be starker. Tehran insists the April 8 ceasefire, brokered by Pakistan, was meant to cover Lebanon. U.S. and Israel beg to differ.

Hezbollah Throws Down the Gauntlet

The Iran-backed militant group has made clear it will not sit on its hands. In a flurry of statements Sunday evening, Hezbollah claimed responsibility for a coordinated series of attacks across northern Israel.

Just before sunset, the group launched what it called “a swarm of attack drones” at Israeli artillery positions north of the settlement of Goren. It struck military infrastructure in Dafna and the Avivim barracks with drones. A rocket barrage was also aimed at the Metula settlement.

Hezbollah framed the attacks as payback for what it called Israeli violations of the ceasefire and ongoing strikes on southern Lebanon. The group added, ominously, that its operations would continue.

The use of drone swarms is a game-changer. It suggests Hezbollah is deploying new, more sophisticated weaponry as the conflict grinds into its sixth week, and that Israel’s air superiority may no longer be as ironclad as it once was.

On the Ground, Israel Turns the Screw

Israeli troops have restarted their push to capture Bint Jbeil, a strategic hilltop town that has long been a Hezbollah bastion. The town, which saw ferocious fighting during the 2006 war, sits on a high plateau and offers commanding views of the surrounding region.

Earlier Sunday, an Israeli airstrike hit the town of Beit Yahoun in southern Lebanon. No casualties were reported from that strike, but the cumulative death toll across Lebanon has become staggering. The Health Ministry now puts the number of killed since March 2 at more than 2,055.

Israel shows no sign of pulling back. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, visiting troops in southern Lebanon, said in a video posted to social media that “tremendous work” had already been done but that “there is still more to do, and we are doing it.”

Diplomacy in the Weeds as Israel Attacks Lebanon

As the fighting intensifies, diplomatic efforts to extend the ceasefire to Lebanon are running into a brick wall. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron made clear in a call that any Middle East ceasefire “must include Lebanon,” according to a readout. But neither London nor Paris holds a veto over Israeli or Iranian warplanes.

Tehran has repeatedly insisted that the April 8 truce was always meant to cover Lebanon. An initial announcement by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said as much. But the U.S. and Israel have since walked that back, treating Lebanon as a separate theater of operations.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned that a potential closure of the Strait of Hormuz and ongoing Israeli strikes on Lebanon threaten regional stability after a meeting in Brussels on the fallout from the Iran conflict.

Lebanon Walks a Tightrope

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, on the eve of the 50th anniversary of Lebanon’s 15-year civil war, delivered a stark warning. “Today, more than ever, we need to learn from our past, not to invoke it for fear-mongering and intimidation, nor to turn it into a weapon against one another,” he said.

Lebanon is already deeply fractured. The government banned Hezbollah’s military wing in March, blaming it for dragging the country into the war by attacking Israel. That decision has deepened sectarian fault lines in a nation that has barely held itself together since the civil war ended in 1990.

Salam tried to strike a reassuring tone, saying Lebanon’s south “will not be left alone” to bear the brunt of the conflict and that efforts to negotiate a ceasefire were ongoing. “Our unity today is not an emotional slogan, but a national imperative,” he pleaded.