Israel expands Lebanon assault with Iran-U.S. talks in balance

Israel expanded its ground assault in Lebanon with its broadest incursion into the country in a quarter-century as Hezbollah — Iran’s most powerful regional ally — stepped up attacks on Israel’s north.

According to the Israeli military, Hezbollah fired more than 300 “projectiles” at its soldiers in Lebanon and at northern Israel over the weekend. The latest escalation has shattered a brittle ceasefire declared after the Tehran-backed group attacked Israel in response to its war on Iran, which it launched with the US on Feb. 28.

As part of a military operation that started several days ago, the Israeli Defense Forces said in a statement that they’d crossed the Litani River and are near Shi’ite-majority Nabatieh — one of the biggest cities in south Lebanon — which the IDF describes as a stronghold of Hezbollah.

“I have instructed the IDF to expand the incursion in Lebanon. Our forces have crossed the Litani River and took dominant terrain,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement citing the capture of the Beaufort ridge.

Sunday’s escalation comes against the backdrop of a tense stalemate between Israel’s top ally, the US, and Iran over an agreement that could potentially pave the way for a permanent ceasefire between the long-time foes.

“Now my instruction is to deepen and expand our hold on places that were under Hezbollah’s control. The capture of Beaufort is a dramatic change in the policy we are leading,” he said, adding that so-called security zones had now been established by Israel in Syria, Gaza and Lebanon.

Earlier on Sunday, Israel Katz, the Israeli defense minister, said the IDF had planted an Israeli flag on the historic Beaufort castle near Nabatieh and that the expansion amounted to “a permanent presence” in the region.

French President Emmanuel Macron condemned the fresh advance and called for a ceasefire. “Nothing justifies the major escalation currently underway in southern Lebanon,” he said in a post on X.

Israeli airstrikes in response to renewed attacks by Hezbollah in March have devastated swathes of southern Lebanon and the capital, Beirut, and killed at least 3,370 people, according to the Lebanese health ministry.

Since the weekend, thousands of residents of dozens of towns and villages in south Lebanon have been ordered to leave their homes by the IDF ahead of its deeper push into the region. The displacement is compounding an already-dire humanitarian situation.

More than 20 Israeli soldiers have been killed as well as four Israeli civilians. Many residents in communities close to the border with Lebanon have abandoned their homes. Israeli schools in a zone stretching 20 kilometers (12.427 miles) south of the border have been instructed to shutdown and restrictions have been imposed on public gatherings.

The US hosted another round of talks between Lebanese government officials and Israel, in historic negotiations that aim to end hostilities between the two and eventually lead to a peace agreement.

Lebanon is demanding a complete truce and Israel wants a guarantee that Hezbollah — which has rejected the negotiations and isn’t taking part in them — is completely uprooted from Lebanon’s south.

Iran has demanded that its own peace deal with the US include an end to the conflict in Lebanon, effectively tying it to the fate of its protracted diplomat exchanges with Washington. US President Donald Trump had suggested earlier in the week that an agreement with Iran was near, but the absence of any announcement after a two-hour Situation Room meeting on Friday was the latest conflicting signal from the White House over the prospects for a deal with Tehran.

Netanyahu has been highly critical of previous efforts by the US to broker agreements with the Islamic Republic because of its hostility to Israel.

He’s used his military strikes on Iran to repeatedly urge Iranians to rise up against the theocratic system governing their country but the regime has remained intact despite Israeli airstrikes killing scores of its top leaders, including its supreme leader. Iran closed the vital Strait of Hormuz since the start of the war, disrupting energy supplies out of the Persian Gulf and sending oil prices soaring.

Exchanges of messages between Iran and the US over the text of a potential memorandum of understanding are still ongoing, and the two sides are proposing changes, periodically, the semi-official Tasnim news agency, which has close ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said without citing anyone. It added that no agreement has been reached and it’s still possible that any deal could collapse.

“Talks and message exchanges are ongoing, and until a definite result is reached, it is not possible to judge,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said, according to Tasnim. “Everything being said now is speculation and should not be given importance.”

Lebanon’s Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said his country didn’t choose this war with Israel and that negotiations were the least costly alternative. “Do the negotiations come with guaranteed result? Certainly not. But it’s the least costly path for our country and our people compared with today’s alternatives,” Salam told reporters at the Grand Serail on Saturday night.

Israel has also started scaling up its operations in Gaza in recent weeks as it prepares to expand its occupation of the devastated Palestinian enclave to 70% of the land, in line with a directive issued by Netanyahu.

The Israeli leader did not give a time frame for the expanded land seizure, which would further stretch an Israeli military that’s been at war for the past two and half years. The multi-front conflict sparked by Hamas’ attack on Israel in October 2023 is the longest and most expensive in the Jewish State’s history bearing a price tag of 405 billion shekels ($144.5 billion) through the end of this year according to the Bank of Israel.

The post Israel expands Lebanon assault with Iran-U.S. talks in balance appeared first on Fortune.