Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire in Lebanon tested by intensifying cross-border strikes as both sides claim breaches

Israel unleashed its largest wave of airstrikes across Lebanon since agreeing to a ceasefire with Hezbollah last week, killing at least 11 people on Monday after the Lebanese militant group fired a volley of projectiles as a warning over what it said were Israeli truce violations.

The projectiles were apparently the first time that Hezbollah took aim at Israeli forces after the 60-day ceasefire went into effect last Wednesday. The increasingly fragile truce aimed to end more than a year of war between Hezbollah and Israel — part of a wider regional conflict sparked by the devastating Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

In a possible sign of the ceasefire’s frailty — and a clear warning of the implications for Lebanon of it failing — Israeli Defense Minister Israeli Katz was cited by the country’s Army Radio network on Tuesday as warning that if the truce “collapses, we will act strongly and stop separating Hezbollah from the state of Lebanon.”

Airstrikes, missile launches test shaky Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire

Lebanon’s Health Ministry said an Israeli airstrike on the southern village of Haris killed five people and wounded two while another airstrike on the village of Tallousa killed four and also wounded two.

Israel’s military carried out a string of airstrikes late Monday against what it said were Hezbollah fighters, infrastructure and rocket launchers across Lebanon. The strikes were a response to Hezbollah firing two projectiles toward Mount Dov — a disputed Israeli-held territory known as Shebaa Farms in Lebanon where the borders of Lebanon, Syria, and Israel meet. Israel said the projectiles fell in open areas and no injuries were reported.

Hezbollah said in a statement that it fired on an Israeli military position in the area as a “defensive and warning response” after what it called “repeated violations” of the ceasefire deal by Israel. It said complaints to mediators tasked with monitoring the ceasefire “were futile in stopping these violations.”

Before the Hezbollah projectiles, Israel carried out at least four airstrikes and an artillery barrage in southern Lebanon, including a drone strike that killed a person on a motorcycle, according to Lebanese state media. Another strike killed a corporal in the Lebanese security services.

Israel has said its strikes are in response to unspecified Hezbollah violations, and that under the ceasefire deal it reserves the right to retaliate.

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.

Officials in the U.S. — which along with France helped broker the truce and heads a commission meant to monitor adherence to the deal — played down the significance of Israeli strikes. White House national security spokesman John Kirby said, “Largely speaking, the ceasefire is holding.”

“We’ve gone from dozens of strikes down to one a day maybe two a day,” Kirby told reporters, referring to Israeli strikes. “We’re going to keep trying and see what we can do to get it down to zero.”

Under the deal, Iran-backed Hezbollah has 60 days to withdraw its fighters and infrastructure from southern Lebanon. During that time, Israeli troops are also to withdraw to their side of the border.

The ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel did nothing to quell the ongoing bloodshed in Gaza, where Israel’s military offensive against the other Iran-backed group Hamas has killed more than 44,000 people, according to health officials in the Palestinian enclave that has been ruled by Hamas for almost 20 years.

Trump warns “hell to pay” if Israeli hostages not released in Gaza

President-elect Donald Trump demanded the immediate release on Monday of Israeli hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza, saying on social media that if they are not freed before he takes office in January, there will be “HELL TO PAY.”

It was not immediately clear whether Trump was threatening to directly involve the U.S. military in Israel’s war in Gaza. The U.S. has given Israel crucial military and diplomatic support throughout the nearly 15-month conflict.

In a post on his Truth Social site, Trump called for Palestinian militants to free all of the roughly 100 Israeli hostages still held inside Gaza, about two-thirds of whom are believed to be alive.

If not, Trump said, “Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW!”

Hours earlier, the Israeli government confirmed the death of Omer Neutra, a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen, whose body is still believed to be held by Hamas in Gaza, according to the Israeli government.

Trump issued his warning days after Hamas released a propaganda video of American-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander, speaking under duress, urging the president-elect to negotiate to free the hostages.

The Biden administration is mounting a last-ditch effort to try to restart talks between Israel and Hamas.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office declined to comment on Trump’s post, though President Isaac Herzog welcomed it.

Netanyahu has faced regular protests against his government’s handling of the hostage crisis, including by many who feel he has deliberately prolonged the war in Gaza to avoid facing his own looming corruption trial.

“We are all slaves of his private interests,” asserted protester Tammy Barkan at a solemn silent demonstration over the weekend.

“I think the Israeli government doesn’t want to… have this deal,” agreed her fellow protester Meital Grimland.

Netanyahu and his government have vowed to continue the military assault in Gaza until Hamas is completely dismantled and all the hostages, dead and alive, are brought back home.

Warnings of famine in north Gaza as aid deliveries dwindle

In Gaza, meanwhile, alarm is mounting over increasing hunger. The amount of food allowed in by Israel has plunged over the past two months, compounded by a decision Sunday by the United Nations to halt aid deliveries from the main crossing into the territory because of the threat of armed gangs looting convoys.

The desperation and hunger have brought even more casualties, with medical officials saying on Friday that two girls, aged 13 and 17, and a 50-year-old woman were crushed to death as a crowd pushed to get bread at a bakery in the central Gaza Strip.

Experts have already warned of famine in the northernmost part of Gaza, which Israeli forces have almost completely isolated since early October, saying they’re fighting regrouped Hamas militants there.

Displaced families have set up tents surrounded by piles of garbage on the streets of Gaza City. Bilal Marouf, 55, said he and 11 family members fled the Israeli offensive “barefoot and naked.”

“We had nothing. Hunger and thirst killed us, and we did not have a single shekel, nor clothes, nor a mattress, nor a blanket,” he said, speaking near his tent.

Israel’s campaign in Gaza, triggered by Hamas’ Oct 7, 2023 terrorist attack that saw the militants kill some 1,200 people across southern Israel and take 250 others hostage, has driven almost the entire population of the territory from their homes. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians now live in squalid tent camps, relying on international aid.

The Israeli military said it allowed 40 trucks carrying 600 tons of flour for the World Food Program to enter the southern Gaza Strip on Sunday night, as well as 16 other food trucks.

Israel has said it is working to increase the flow of aid. November saw an increase in the average number of humanitarian trucks it let into Gaza, up to 77 daily from 57 the month before, according to official Israeli figures. But the levels are still nearly the lowest of the entire 15-month war. And the U.N. says less than half of that actually reaches Palestinians because Israeli military restrictions, fighting and robberies make it too dangerous to deliver the aid.

The World Food Program was able to only deliver aid to some 300,000 Palestinians in November across the Gaza Strip due to ongoing Israeli military offensives and the looting of convoys, Carl Skau, WFP’s deputy executive director, said Monday.

In a tent camp in the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah, Palestinians lined up at makeshift mud ovens trying to buy a few loaves of flatbread for their families.

With the price of flour mounting because of scarcity, the bakers — women displaced from further north — said they could bake less bread, and families could afford far less.

“They divide them to their children, one loaf every day,” said one woman baker, Wafaa al-Attar.