Israel says Hizbullah is stepping up efforts to rebuild its forces in Lebanon, warning that the development could trigger a broader escalation.
Defence minister Israel Katz said the Lebanese government’s commitment to disarm the Iranian-backed group and remove it from southern Lebanon must be fulfilled.
He threatened to intensify Israel’s response unless Beirut honoured its commitment.
“Hizbullah is playing with fire, and the president of Lebanon is dragging his feet,” Mr Katz said.
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“Maximum enforcement will continue and even intensify” if the threat is not removed as Israel “will not allow a threat to the residents of the north”.
Under the US-brokered ceasefire of November 2024 that ended more than a year of hostilities between Israel and the powerful Shia militia, Beirut agreed that only the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) should bear arms in the country. That would mean fully disarming Hizbullah.
In September Lebanon’s cabinet adopted a detailed five-phase plan for imposing the state monopoly on arms, starting in the south and gradually moving north and east.
The army said it would clear the area south of the Litani river, adjacent to the border with Israel, by December without committing to a timeline for the rest of the country.
Cross-border fire had started a day after the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7th, 2023.
Since the November 2024 ceasefire, Israel has struck repeatedly at what it claims are Hizbullah targets across Lebanon.
Israel says it has killed about 400 Hizbullah operatives and destroyed dozens of infrastructure targets.
It said it would not allow the group to threaten the north of Israel again, after more than 80,000 Israelis fled the region to escape Hizbullah rocket fire.
Israel is also occupying five strategic sites in Lebanon and says it will only withdraw after Hizbullah is disarmed.
Israeli forces have also been conducting ground incursions and last week killed a municipal worker in the south Lebanese village of Blida, prompting Lebanese president Joseph Aoun to instruct the commander of the Lebanese army to confront any Israeli raids.
Lebanese prime minister Nawaf Salam denounced the killing as a “flagrant violation of Lebanese institutions and sovereignty” and said Beirut would continue pressing the United Nations and ceasefire guarantors “to ensure a halt to the repeated violations and the implementation of a complete Israeli withdrawal from our lands”.
Last week Reuters reported that Lebanon’s army has blown up so many Hizbullah arms caches that it has run out of explosives.
While waiting for fresh deliveries of explosives and other military equipment from Washington, Lebanese troops are continuing to seal off sites they find instead of destroying them, including arms caches and dozens of Hizbullah tunnels.
Foreign intelligence service officials say they believe Hizbullah has managed partly to re-establish its supply chain and receive arms from Iran via Iraq and Syria. They say the organisation’s rearmament is outpacing the Lebanese army’s efforts to disarm it.
Israeli defence officials believe Hizbullah’s rebuilding efforts are aimed at preserving its status as a force within Lebanon and deterring the government from acting to disarm it.
Sources in Beirut say the Israeli attacks aim to put pressure on the Lebanese government to open diplomatic negotiations.
US envoy Tom Barrack expressed concern at the weekend over the slow pace of the Hizbullah disarmament. He said Israel was still bombing southern Lebanon because “thousands of rockets and missiles” remain there.
But he acknowledged that “it is not reasonable for us to tell Lebanon to forcibly disarm one of its political parties – everybody is scared to death to go into a civil war”.
