Israel’s military says it targeted a Hezbollah factory that produced thousands of drones
TEL AVIV—Israel’s military said it was targeting an underground drone facility in southern Beirut on Thursday, in one of its largest strikes on Hezbollah assets since a cease-fire was agreed to in November.
The military said Hezbollah’s aerial unit was producing thousands of drones with help and funding frin Iran. It said Hezbollah was working to increase its production of drones in preparation for its next war with Israel, characterizing it as a “blatant violation” of the agreement between Israel and Lebanon that brought more than a year of fighting to an end.
Lebanese television channels broadcast live footage of Beirut’s southern suburbs, where smoke from a strike was hovering above the densely packed residential district on the eve of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha. Three more strikes were aired live on television, each about 10 minutes apart. They sent fresh smoke plumes toward the sky and left fires raging on the ground.
The strikes appeared to be the most extensive since the cease-fire to target Beirut’s southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has long had a heavy presence. Attacks so close to the capital, just a few miles away, often have a greater impact on Lebanon’s fragile internal politics.
Israel informed the U.S. that it would be striking a facility that makes advanced weaponry, a U.S. official said, and Washington has no objections to the strike. The U.S. official said Lebanese President Joseph Aoun is responsible for ensuring that Hezbollah doesn’t rebuild.
Aoun condemned the Israeli strikes, calling them “a blatant violation of an international agreement” and “damning evidence of the perpetrator’s rejection of the requirements of stability, settlement, and just peace in our region.”
The last strike by Israel near Beirut was in late April, when it said it had targeted Hezbollah weapons stores. Last week, Israel struck areas in south Lebanon, killing at least one person according to Lebanon’s state news agency.
In November, the Lebanese militia Hezbollah and Israel agreed to end more than a year of fighting that began after the Iranian-backed group started launching aerial attacks on Israel the day after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on southern Israel. Hezbollah said it wouldn’t stop attacking Israel until the war in Gaza ended. But a series of Israeli operations that took out much of its senior leadership and a ground offensive aimed at pushing the militia back from Israel’s border ultimately brought the group to the negotiating table to end the fighting.
The cease-fire agreement has always been fragile. It began with a 60-day pause in fighting that was meant to allow Israeli forces to pull out of Lebanon as the Lebanese military cleared the area of Hezbollah. Shortly after the deal went into effect, both sides accused the other of violations. Israel has claimed a broad mandate to strike Lebanon in response to threats. Israel also has kept troops in five locations inside Lebanon beyond a deadline to remove them.
Both sides are supposed to report violations to an international monitoring mechanism. The U.S. official said Israel had alerted the mechanism to the drone facility.
Jeanine Hennis, United Nations special coordinator for Lebanon, said the latest Israeli strikes had renewed panic and fear. She called for a halt on any activities that could further undermine the cessation of hostilities and urged the use of diplomacy instead.
Despite the violations, the truce has held. U.S. and Israeli officials have said they have been pleasantly surprised by the Lebanese army’s success so far in disarming Hezbollah in its southern strongholds. The Lebanese government has achieved roughly 80% of its objectives in disarming militias in southern Lebanon, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam told The Wall Street Journal last month.
Write to Shayndi Raice at Shayndi.Raice@wsj.com, Stephen Kalin at stephen.kalin@wsj.com and Alexander Ward at alex.ward@wsj.com