Israel threatened Lebanon on Sunday with intensifying strikes on Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, a day after an Israeli air raid killed four people, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.
Despite a November 2024 cease-fire with the Lebanese armed group, Israel maintains troops in five areas in southern Lebanon and has kept up regular strikes.
"Hezbollah is playing with fire, and the president of Lebanon is dragging his feet," Defense Minister Israel Katz claimed in a statement.
"The Lebanese government's commitment to disarm Hezbollah and remove it from southern Lebanon must be implemented. Maximum enforcement will continue and even intensify – we will not allow any threat to the residents of the north."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that Hezbollah was attempting to "rearm" itself.
"We expect the Lebanese government to fulfil its commitment – to disarm Hezbollah – but it is clear we will exercise our right of self-defense under the terms of cease-fire," Netanyahu told the cabinet at its weekly meeting Sunday.
"We will not allow Lebanon to become a renewed front against us, and we will act as necessary," he said, according to a statement issued by his office.
Thousands of Israelis living near the northern border with Lebanon evacuated their homes after Hezbollah began firing rockets in October 2023, in retaliation for Israel's genocidal war on Gaza.
That set off a more than yearlong conflict that culminated in two months of open war before last year's cease-fire was agreed.
The Iran-backed armed group, which opposes Israel, has been badly weakened by the war but remains armed and financially resilient.
In September 2024, Israel killed the group's longtime chief, Hassan Nasrallah, along with many other senior leaders over the course of the war.
Since the cease-fire, the United States has increased pressure on Lebanese authorities to disarm the group, a move opposed by Hezbollah and its allies.
The Lebanese government has drawn up a plan to impose a state monopoly on weapons, and said the army has begun implementing it, starting in the country's south.
Israel never stopped carrying out airstrikes in Lebanon despite the truce – usually saying it is targeting Hezbollah positions – and has stepped up the attacks in recent days.
On Thursday, Israeli ground troops carried out a deadly raid into southern Lebanon, prompting Lebanese President Joseph Aoun to order the army to confront such incursions.
Aoun had called for talks with Israel in mid-October, after U.S. President Donald Trump helped broker a cease-fire in Gaza.
But Aoun later accused Israel of responding to his offer by intensifying its strikes, the latest of which killed four people in Nabatiyeh district Saturday, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.
The official Lebanese National News Agency reported that the Israeli army hit a car "with a guided missile."
The Israeli military confirmed the strike, saying it killed a member of Hezbollah's Radwan Force in southern Lebanon.
