JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said it struck weapons depots belonging to the armed group Hezbollah in southern Lebanon on Sunday.
“A short while ago, the IDF (Israeli military) struck Hezbollah weapon storage facilities in southern Lebanon. These weapon depots were used by the terrorist organization to advance and carry out terror attacks against the State of Israel,” the military said in a statement.
Despite a November ceasefire that ended over a year of hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, the latter has kept up regular strikes on Lebanon and still has troops positioned at five border points inside Lebanon.
Hezbollah, meanwhile, is under intense pressure to hand over its weapons, with the Lebanese army having drawn up a plan to disarm it, beginning in the south.
Lebanon itself is facing pressure to act from the United States, as well as from the ongoing Israeli strikes.
But on Saturday, Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said the group would not allow itself to be disarmed as he addressed supporters while marking one year since the killing by Israel of his predecessor, Hassan Nasrallah.
Hezbollah was the only major armed group allowed to keep its weapons following Lebanon’s civil war, because it was fighting continued Israeli occupation of the south.
The group’s heartlands are in mainly Shiite southern and eastern Lebanon, as well as south Beirut.
In October 2023, it began launching rockets at Israel in support of Hamas in Gaza. Months of exchanges escalated into all-out war in September 2024, before a ceasefire was agreed two months later.