Widescale IDF strikes target Hezbollah training camp, terror sites across Lebanon

Beirut parliament speaker calls sortie a ‘message’ to mediators meeting in Paris with Lebanese military chief on disarming Iran-backed group, as ceasefire threatens to unravel

Israel struck Hezbollah targets across Lebanon on Thursday morning, the military said, hitting weapons stores deep inside the country and a training camp used by the terror group.

The wave of bombardments appeared to be the latest in a series of escalating sorties targeting the terror group’s attempts to rebuild its forces, as mediators scramble to hold off a possible renewed Israeli military operation and keep a fragile year-old ceasefire from collapsing completely.

The Israel Defense Forces said its strikes destroyed launch sites and other terrorist infrastructure at a training camp for operatives, without specifying the location.

It accused the terror group of posing a threat and violating the understandings between Israel and Lebanon established in a ceasefire last year.

According to the army, the camp was used by Hezbollah to train operatives, conduct live-fire exercises, operate artillery and store weapons.

The military added that additional strikes were carried out deep inside Lebanon on buildings used by Hezbollah to store weapons and conduct operations.

Separately, the IDF also announced that it had targeted a Hezbollah operative in the Taybeh area in southern Lebanon.

According to Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency, several strikes targeted mountainous areas in the southern and eastern parts of the country. It was unclear if there were any casualties.

The attacks came as French, Saudi Arabian and American officials were set to hold talks in Paris with the head of the Lebanese army aimed at finalizing a roadmap to a mechanism for the disarmament of the Hezbollah group, diplomats said.

Parliament speaker and Hezbollah-allied Amal Movement leader Nabih Berri said the strikes were an “Israeli message” to the Paris conference, the official Lebanese news agency NNA reported.

Israel has been ramping up its military operations in Lebanon in recent weeks, amid reports of a possible widescale Israeli offensive targeting Hezbollah, despite a ceasefire that began in November 2024.

The US-brokered ceasefire with Hezbollah came after two months of open conflict in Lebanon, including an IDF ground operation in the country’s south in a bid to enable the safe return of some 60,000 residents of northern Israel displaced by the terror group’s near-daily attacks. The rocket and drone attacks began on October 8, 2023 — a day after fellow Iran-backed terror group Hamas invaded southern Israel, sparking the war in Gaza.

The ceasefire required both Israel and Hezbollah to vacate southern Lebanon, to be replaced by the Lebanese armed forces. Israel has withdrawn from all but five strategic posts along the border.

With growing fear the ceasefire could unravel, the Paris meeting aims to create more robust conditions to identify, support and verify the disarmament process and dissuade Israel from escalation, four European and Lebanese diplomats and officials told Reuters.

Legislative elections are due in Lebanon in 2026, there are fears political paralysis and factionalism will further fuel instability and make President Joseph Aoun less likely to press disarmament, the diplomats and officials said.

“The situation is extremely precarious, full of contradictions and it won’t take much to light the powder keg,” said one senior official speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Aoun doesn’t want to make the disarming process too public because he fears it will antagonize and provoke tensions with the Shiite community in the south of the country.”

Because the Lebanese army lacks capacity to disarm Hezbollah, the idea would be to reinforce the existing ceasefire mechanism with French, US and possibly other military experts along with UN peacekeeping forces, the diplomats and officials said.

The parties hope to organize a conference at the start of next year to reinforce the Lebanese army as well as a separate conference to help reconstruction, most notably for the south.

Since the ceasefire, the IDF says it has killed over 380 Hezbollah operatives and members of allied terror groups in strikes, hit hundreds of Hezbollah sites, and conducted over 1,200 raids and other small operations in southern Lebanon.

Weakened by the war and still facing regular Israeli strikes, Hezbollah is under internal and international pressure to hand over its weapons, with the Lebanese army having drawn up a plan to disarm it.

The foreign ministers of Lebanon and Iran are due to meet soon to discuss the issue.