Israel has been conducting near-daily strikes against what it says are Hezbollah targets as the Iranian-backed group comes under pressure to disarm amid fears of a renewed war.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/09/world/middleeast/israel-lebanon.html

By Euan Ward

Reporting from Beirut, Lebanon

July 9, 2025

Israel announced on Wednesday its first ground incursions in months into parts of southern Lebanon, an escalation aimed at further weakening Hezbollah as the Iran-backed militant group faces mounting pressure to disarm and avoid another potentially devastating war.

The Israeli military said the “targeted operations” had located and destroyed Hezbollah infrastructure, but it did not say when this happened. The Israeli military released footage showing what it said was soldiers conducting nighttime operations inside Lebanese territory.

For months, Israel has conducted near-daily strikes against what it describes as Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, intensifying them in recent weeks. The attacks have added to growing fears that the tenuous Israeli-Hezbollah cease-fire, which has been in place since November, may not hold.

Battered by last year’s war with Israel and struggling to recuperate, Hezbollah has yet to respond militarily to any of the Israeli attacks since the truce was agreed.

The United States and Israel have been stepping up pressure on Hezbollah to give up its arsenal — a core requirement of the cease-fire, which ended the country’s deadliest conflict in decades.

The war began when Hezbollah attacked Israel in solidarity with its Palestinian ally in the Gaza Strip, Hamas, which is also backed by Iran. The Israelis went to war against Hamas immediately after the militants led the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel that killed roughly 1,200 people.

The war to the north between Israel and Hezbollah killed about 4,000 people in Lebanon, and left swaths of the country in ruins. There is no clear indication who will foot the multibillion dollar reconstruction bill.

Israel’s announcement of renewed ground operations there followed a flurry of diplomatic activity this week, with President Trump dispatching a top U.S. envoy to Lebanon to press for Hezbollah’s disarmament.

Under the terms of the truce, Hezbollah and Israel were expected to withdraw from southern Lebanon.

But the Israeli military has held onto five positions along the border in violation of the agreement, in turn accusing Hezbollah of breaching the deal by maintaining an armed presence in the area. Hezbollah says it has withdrawn from southern Lebanon.

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The stalemate has raised fears of renewed conflict, with the U.S. envoy, Thomas J. Barrack Jr., describing the cease-fire as a “total failure.”

Hezbollah’s full disarmament remains a deeply contentious issue in Lebanon, underscoring just how precarious this moment is for the tiny Mediterranean nation.

Hezbollah was the only militia allowed to retain its weapons after Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war, under the pretext of continuing resistance to Israeli occupation. As a result, it quickly rose to become Lebanon’s most powerful military force, stronger than even the Lebanese Army.

Over four decades of building a state within a state, Hezbollah amassed a vast arsenal of precision-guided missiles and leveraged it military might to come to dominate Lebanese politics.

That dominance unraveled in dramatic fashion over the past year.

Not only has Hezbollah seen its top leaders killed and much of its arsenal destroyed during the war with Israel, but its patron, Iran, is also grappling with a reckoning of its own now after recent attacks by Israel and the United States on its nuclear facilities.

The collapse of another ally, the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in neighboring Syria, deprived Hezbollah of what was once a vital land route for smuggling in arms, further isolating it.

Lebanon’s new government, which has pledged to bring all weapons under state control, has dismantled hundreds of military sites in the country’s south since the cease-fire began. But it has yet to set a definitive timeline for Hezbollah’s full disarmament.

Hezbollah’s leader, Naim Qassem, signaled in a speech on Sunday that his fighters would not lay down their weapons until Israel halted its attacks. “How can anyone expect us not to stand firm?” Mr. Qassem said.

The announcement of renewed Israeli ground operations came shortly after Mr. Barrack, the top U.S. envoy and close Trump confidant, arrived in Beirut on Monday, where he received the Lebanese government’s response to a U.S. road map on Hezbollah disarmament. Mr. Barrack delivered the proposal from Secretary of State Marco Rubio last month.

Speaking to reporters on Monday after meeting with Lebanon’s president, Joseph Aoun, Mr. Barrack said that he was “unbelievably satisfied” with the government’s response, without providing any details on what the seven-page document included.

Just hours before Mr. Barrack’s visit, Israel launched a wave of airstrikes across southern and eastern Lebanon, another escalation that Lebanese officials and diplomats viewed as a bid to intensify pressure on Hezbollah.

Since the cease-fire began, roughly 250 people have been killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon, according to the health ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.

Mr. Barrack appeared eager on Monday to project the notion that a diplomatic agreement was within reach.

“Both countries are trying to give the same thing: the notion of a stand-down agreement, of the cessation of hostilities, and a road to peace,” he said.

Euan Ward is a reporter contributing to The Times from Beirut.

A version of this article appears in print on July 10, 2025, Section A, Page 6 of the New York edition with the headline: Israel Launches Incursions Into Lebanon. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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