The Israeli military carried out a wave of airstrikes on Tuesday targeting government forces in Syria and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, escalating what Israel said were efforts to secure the country’s northern border.
The strikes in Syria were a rare attack on forces of Syria’s new government, which is led by Islamist former rebels who toppled the dictator Bashar al-Assad in December. Israel intervened after days of deadly sectarian clashes in the southern region of Sweida that began with fighting between Bedouin groups and militias from the Druse minority.
The new Syrian government sent forces to try to calm the violence in Sweida, the heartland of the Druse. But those forces were drawn into the fighting, which has left dozens dead in the latest sectarian violence to hit the country.
Israel’s government has close ties with the country’s own Druse minority and has pledged to protect the Druse across the border in Syria.
Israel and the new Syrian government have opened diplomatic contact recently aimed at curbing tensions with the help of U.S. mediation.
The attacks across the border in Lebanon targeted the Bekaa Valley, a bastion of support for Hezbollah. They were the latest in a series of intensifying assaults against the group in what Lebanese officials and diplomats say is an attempt to pressure it to disarm.
Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, said in a statement on Tuesday that the attacks were “a clear message” to both Hezbollah and the Lebanese government that Israel would respond with “maximum force” to any attempt by the group to restore its military capabilities.
Hezbollah is facing mounting U.S. and Israel pressure to disarm — a core requirement of an increasingly fragile cease-fire agreement signed in November that ended Lebanon’s deadliest and most destructive war in decades.
Euan Ward is a reporter contributing to The Times from Beirut.
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