The Israel Defense Forces on Wednesday eliminated a Hezbollah terrorist in the At-Tiri area of Southern Lebanon, the military said.
The terrorist had been involved in “efforts to reestablish Hezbollah’s readiness in the area,” the IDF stated. “His actions constituted a violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon.”
Separately, the IDF on Wednesday said that Hezbollah “has been working to rebuild its capabilities in the village of Beit Lif in southern Lebanon, in a blatant violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon.”
IDF troops have identified “dozens of terrorist infrastructure sites in the area of the village, including headquarters and weapons storage facilities belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organization. Hezbollah places these inside the civilian homes of the village’s residents and adjacent to civilian buildings and facilities,” the statement read.
Hezbollah’s activity in Beit Lif is “one of many examples of Hezbollah’s attempts to reestablish its assets throughout Lebanon, with an emphasis on rural areas,” the army also said.
The IDF flagged the Hezbollah infrastructure in Beit Lif to the international mechanism for implementing the understandings, but the issue was “not addressed,” the IDF said in the statement.
In separate strikes in the Bint Jbeil and Blida areas of Southern Lebanon, the IDF eliminated two operatives of the Iranian-backed terrorist army, the military confirmed in an earlier statement on Wednesday morning.
In the strike in the Bint Jbeil area, an operative who was trying to re-establish Hezbollah’s terror infrastructure was eliminated, the IDF stated. In the strike near Blida, a terrorist operative who had been observed gathering intelligence on IDF soldiers was killed.
“The terrorists’ actions constituted a violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon,” according to the military statement.
On Tuesday night, the IDF announced it had struck a training compound of the Palestinian Hamas terror group in Lebanon.
The Hamas facility in Ain al-Hilweh, which is home to Lebanon’s largest Palestinian “refugee camp,” was used by the terrorist group for “training and exercises to plan and carry out terrorist attacks against IDF troops and the State of Israel,” according to the army statement.
The IDF noted that, prior to the airstrike, several measures were taken to mitigate harm to noncombatants near the facility, “including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance and additional intelligence.”
The Israeli military “is operating against Hamas’s establishment in Lebanon, and will continue to operate against Hamas terrorists wherever they operate,” it stated.
At least 13 people were killed and four were wounded in the attack, according to Lebanese reports. Palestinian sources said a gathering of more than 20 people had convened in the targeted compound. No senior terrorist leaders were killed in the strike, contrary to earlier reports.
Hamas claimed in a statement that the site was an open sports field frequented by local youths and that there were no military installations within the camp. However, IDF Arabic Spokesperson Avichay Adraee exposed the claim as a lie, providing documentation on X of a Hamas invitation for young people to join its activities, with one of the listed registration centers being the training complex that was targeted.
“Last night, we precisely targeted a training and qualification complex affiliated with Hamas in Lebanon, which was part of a plan to carry out attacks against Israel. We targeted the complex to which Hamas has called its ‘youth’ on more than one occasion to join its terrorist ranks. It was not a peaceful complex as they claimed in the media,” Adraee wrote.
“As for the lies, slander, and talk of a ‘massacre,’ it is nothing but a desperate attempt by Hamas and some Lebanese parties to cover up the real terrorism,” he continued.
The situation in Lebanon remains volatile following the end of the truce with Beirut on Feb. 18. The ceasefire, which went into effect on Nov. 27, ended more than a year of war, after Hezbollah began attacks on Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, one day after Hamas’s invasion of southern Israel.
Beirut’s Supreme Defense Council on May 2 urged Hamas to also cease its terrorist operations in the country, saying it compromised “Lebanon’s sovereignty.”
Speaking at a press conference following a meeting at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanese Maj. Gen. Mohammad Mustafa, the body’s secretary, announced that the council decided to recommend that parliament issue a warning to Hamas terrorists not to use Lebanese territory to carry out actions that could jeopardize the country’s stability, under penalty of “strict measures” against them.
“The council also took note of the launch of judicial proceedings, scheduled for the beginning of next week, against those arrested in connection with the March rocket fire,” Mustafa told reporters.
On March 29, Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) commander Gen. Rodolph Haykal told the state-run National News Agency that several people had been detained in connection with the firing of rockets the previous day.
For the third time since Israel’s truce with Beirut took effect on Nov. 27, terrorists in the Land of the Cedars had fired rockets at the Galilee on March 28, with air-raid sirens sounding in the Kiryat Shmona area.
The arrested suspects were said to include Palestinians and Lebanese.
Haykal said that rocket attacks from Southern Lebanon serve “the enemy,” meaning the Jewish state, and reaffirmed the military’s commitment to safeguarding Lebanon and its people.
