At least six people were killed and 10 others wounded in two separate Israeli strikes on eastern Lebanon on Thursday, in what Lebanese officials and analysts say may involve wider, undisclosed regional dynamics beyond the war with Hezbollah.
The attacks mark yet another breach of a US-brokered ceasefire reached last November.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA), citing the Health Ministry, reported that five people were killed and 10 wounded when an airstrike hit a vehicle on the al-Masnaa international road in the Bekaa Valley, near the Syrian border.
Another drone strike in Kfar Dan, west of Baalbek, killed a Lebanese civilian standing outside his home. While Israel has not commented, security sources have suggested that at least one of the targets may have been linked to non-Lebanese armed networks operating quietly in the borderlands.
Earlier the same day, a Syrian national was killed and two others injured in an overnight Israeli strike on Deir Siryan in southern Lebanon’s Marjayoun district. The Israeli army later said it had hit “Hezbollah infrastructure,” but offered no specifics.
Lebanese officials noted that some of the affected sites were civilian or mixed-use areas, including a garage and bulldozers near homes. The pattern of strikes, they added, appears to target not only Hezbollah positions but also other groups Israel believes are supplying or sheltering the Iran-backed force.
The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah began on October 8, 2023, after the Lebanese group launched cross-border attacks in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza. It escalated into full-scale war by September 2024, killing more than 4,000 people and wounding about 17,000.
Under the ceasefire terms, Hezbollah was to withdraw north of the Litani River while Israel was to withdraw its troops from Lebanese territory, commitments both sides have partly ignored.
Lebanon’s government has now formally endorsed a US-backed plan to fully disarm Hezbollah by the year’s end. But with Israel continuing near-daily strikes and the possibility of third-party actors being drawn in, analysts warn that the fragile truce could collapse long before that deadline.