An Israeli strike hit a car on a busy highway just south of Beirut on Wednesday, hours before the second day of critical ceasefire talks between Lebanon and Israel are set to take place in Washington.
Strike in Khaldeh
The strike in Khaldeh came without warning, and it was not immediately clear if the targeted individual was killed. Israel typically states that it targets members of the Hezbollah militant group in such drone attacks.
Previous Agreement
On Monday, Israel and Lebanon reached a U.S.-brokered agreement whereby Israel would not strike Beirut's southern suburbs and Hezbollah would cease its attacks on northern Israel. This accord came hours after Israel announced plans to launch strikes across the sprawling urban neighborhoods near the Lebanese capital, which would have been the most intense since a nominal ceasefire took effect on April 17.
Talks Progress
The State Department reported progress during the first day of talks on Tuesday. Lebanon aims to broaden the ceasefire to cover the entire country, while Israel insists on the immediate disarmament of Hezbollah before ending its operations in Lebanon and withdrawing troops from dozens of villages and towns.
Shortly after the strike on Khaldeh, the Israeli military stated it intercepted what it called a hostile aircraft coming from southern Lebanon, but did not immediately attribute it to Hezbollah. The group has not claimed a cross-border attack since the agreement.
Continued Strikes in Southern Lebanon
Israeli strikes persisted across southern Lebanon, particularly in and around the battered cities of Tyre and Nabatiyeh. Overnight, two strikes near Tyre killed four Syrians and two Palestinians. Israel warned the Christian neighborhoods in Tyre that Hezbollah members were among them. Many Lebanese Shiite Muslims had fled to those areas in recent days as they were spared from aerial bombardment along the Mediterranean coast. Following the warning, the Lebanese army deployed to the Christian district of Tyre to prevent Israeli attacks and demonstrate that Hezbollah has no armed presence there.
Conflict Background
Israel launched an invasion of southern Lebanon days after the latest war erupted on March 2, when Iran-backed Hezbollah fired rockets towards northern Israel in solidarity with Iran. Israeli troops have advanced deeper into Lebanon over the past week, as Hezbollah continues to claim rocket and drone attacks. The conflict has killed 3,468 people in Lebanon and displaced 1.2 million. According to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, at least 27 Israeli soldiers and a defense contractor have been killed in or near southern Lebanon, along with two civilians in northern Israel.
Among the 27 killed was a soldier in southern Lebanon, whose death was announced late Monday by Israel’s military. Seven more soldiers were wounded in the same incident, three of them severely. Hezbollah’s use of hard-to-detect fiber-optic drones has proven deadly for the Israeli military, which is struggling to counter them.
