Israel appears to be blowing up the ceasefire in Lebanon. Israeli strikes killed 11 people yesterday, after Hezbollah fired a few shells at the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms area. The Hezbollah strike—which the Israel Defense Forces said landed in an open area, causing no damage—came after the IDF carried out at least four airstrikes and an artillery barrage in southern Lebanon, including a drone strike that killed a person on a motorcycle, while another strike killed a Lebanese soldier. Israeli violations include the appearance of a drone over Beirut, for the first time since the ceasefire went into effect last week. Hezbollah said, in a statement, that they had carried out a “defensive response” to Israel’s “repeated violations” of the ceasefire. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu replied: “We are determined to continue to enforce the ceasefire, and to respond to any violation by Hezbollah—a minor one will be treated like a major one.”
Lebanon’s Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri accused Israel of violating the truce more than 50 times in recent days by launching airstrikes, demolishing homes near the border and violating Lebanon’s airspace.
The Biden Administration is reported to have complained to Netanyahu that Israel’s “enforcement” of the ceasefire could unravel it. “The Israelis have been playing a dangerous game in recent days,” an unnamed U.S. official told Axios.
U.S. officials said President Biden’s advisor Amos Hochstein, who brokered the ceasefire, spoke to Israeli officials over the weekend and expressed concern about the IDF ongoing strikes in Lebanon. Hochstein told the Israelis that they should give space for the ceasefire monitoring mechanism to begin working, the U.S. officials said. An Israeli official said Hochstein had conveyed the message that Israel is enforcing the ceasefire “too aggressively.” The official admitted that the current situation could lead to the collapse of the ceasefire, but stressed that it will depend on how Hezbollah responds to the Israeli retaliation for its attack on Monday.
The reported message from Hochstein came a day after French diplomatic sources had told Hebrew media outlets that France had accused Israel of 52 separate ceasefire violations. The Times of Israel’s sources claimed that although Israel was acting against Hezbollah’s own violations, the IDF had not gone through the proper channels to report the Lebanese terror group’s transgressions to the U.S.-led international oversight body, of which France is a member, as required by the terms of the agreement.
