BEIRUT — The Israeli infantrymen advanced up to the hilltop in the dead of night, punching their way in a bare-knuckle, eyeball-to-eyeball fight against entrenched defenders until they reached their target: Beaufort castle.
It was June 6, 1982, and by its end and many casualties later, Israeli troops raised the flag over the hilltop Crusader castle, marking the start of Israel’s 18-year occupation of south Lebanon.
Almost exactly 44 years since that night — and just over 26 years after a Hezbollah-led insurgency forced it to withdraw — Israel troops blitzed into Beaufort once more, even as Israeli leaders press on with a campaign that could see a fifth of Lebanon under renewed invasion.
On Monday, one day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Beaufort’s reconquest as “a dramatic change” in policy that would push Israel to “deepen and expand our hold on places that were under Hezbollah’s control,” he ordered Israel’s military to attack targets in the Lebanese capital, Beirut.
The move canceled one of the few tangible achievements of a U.S.-brokered ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel announced on April 17. Though it did not stop Israeli attacks in Lebanon’s south — where some 800 people have been killed since the ceasefire came into effect, nor Hezbollah fire on northern Israel — the truce had mostly excluded Beirut and its environs.
Israel’s intensifying Lebanon campaign threatened the already shaky ceasefire between Washington and Tehran, but President Trump announced that he had persuaded Israel to dial back its offensive.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said he had “very productive” call with Netanyahu, and that “there will be no Troops going to Beirut, and any Troops that are on their way, have already been turned back.”
Trump added that Hezbollah “agreed that all shooting will stop — That Israel will not attack them, and they will not attack Israel.”
Netanyahu had said earlier that Israel would pursue Hezbollah targets in the Dahiyeh, the collection of suburban neighborhoods abutting Beirut’s south, where Hezbollah, an Iran-backed paramilitary faction and political party, has long held sway.
Netanyahu’s announcement triggered an exodus from the Dahiyeh, with residents frantically leaving homes they had already been forced to abandon several times before in recent months, and roads were gridlocked with cars and nervous motorists. An Israeli drone circled overhead, its buzzing ceaseless throughout the day.
Elsewhere, Israeli warplanes pounded areas of southern Lebanon. The Israeli military issued forced displacement orders for villages and towns well north of the Litani River, a vital Lebanese waterway that would bound a so-called Security Zone extending to Israel’s border with Lebanon that would be “free of weapons and terrorists,” according to a statement from Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz on Monday.
Israel used the Litani to demarcate a similar zone during its previous occupation of Lebanon.
The current round of fighting between Hezbollah and Israel began on March 2, after the group launched drones and missiles to avenge Israel’s killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Hezbollah’s strikes also were in response to Israel’s continued strikes and razing of villages in south Lebanon, despite a truce announced in November 2024. (Israel claimed its attacks were a response to Hezbollah violations.)
Hezbollah’s fusillade in March sparked a furious response from Israel, which launched a blistering air campaign and a ground offensive that pushed ground troops deeper into Lebanon.
Israeli attacks have since killed more than 3,412 people, including 133 paramedics, Lebanese authorities say, and systematically razed entire villages in Lebanon’s south.
Even before Netanyahu’s weekend announcement, Israel occupied some 220 square miles of Lebanese territory, analysts say, an area roughly two-thirds of San Diego.
Since March 2, Hezbollah drones and missiles have killed two people in Israel along with at least 21 soldiers and one civilian contractor in southern Lebanon, according to the Israeli military.
Netanyahu’s declaration of Beaufort’s takeover and the intensification of the campaign in Lebanon was met with a mix of outrage, dismissal and condemnation from the region and beyond — and with enthusiastic approval from right-wing members of his cabinet who have long clamored for a tougher stance in Lebanon.
“The return to Beaufort is an expression of correcting old national sins and distorted perceptions,” said Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a hardline figure who added he would “continue to demand and promote a permanent seizure of territory and exceptional military aggressiveness.”
France, the United Kingdom and Germany condemned Israel’s military operations in Lebanon, with France requesting an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Monday and French President Emmanuel Macron saying in a statement on X on Sunday that “nothing justifies” Israel’s escalation in Lebanon.
In another statement on Monday, Macron said that he commended President Trump during a phone call Sunday night for his “commitment to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Lebanon.”
Iran says it will only accept an end to the war that would also silence the guns in Lebanon, a non-starter for Israel, which insists on freedom to strike Hezbollah to prevent the group from reconstituting itself.
“The ceasefire between Iran and the U.S. is unequivocally a ceasefire on all fronts, including in Lebanon,” wrote Iranian Foreign Minister Abbass Aragchi on X on Monday.
“Its violation on one front is a violation of the ceasefire on all fronts. The U.S. and Israel are responsible for the consequences of any violation,” he wrote.
The backdrop to Israel’s expanded assault are negotiations between Washington and Tehran direct negotiations between the Lebanese and Israeli governments. The talks, which began in April with U.S. mediation, represent a reversal of a decades-old policy proscribing Lebanese officials’ contact with Israelis.
Israel and the U.S. are seeking a deal that would have the Lebanese government disarm Hezbollah and normalize relations with Israel. The Lebanese government has taken steps to neutralize Hezbollah, declaring its military activities illegal and taking over parts of its military infrastructure during the 2024 ceasefire.
But the Lebanese government nevertheless insists that the group — whose Iran-supplied arsenal is more advanced than that of the Lebanese Army — cannot have its weapons removed by force for fear of sparking a civil war.
Hezbollah is not a party to the negotiations, and says it will not abide by their outcomes.
“The Israeli escalation has proven the failure of the direct negotiation option pursued by [Lebanese] authorities to achieve any gains,” said Hassan Fadlallah, a Hezbollah parliamentarian, told local media on Sunday.
“The political outcomes of these negotiations have all served the interests of the enemy, who has exploited them to deepen its crimes against Lebanon, particularly in the south,” he said.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said his government had “no other option” but to engage in negotiations.
“Unfortunately, some consider negotiation to be surrender. It is not, ” he said in a meeting with political party representatives on Monday, according to a report from Lebanon’s state-news operator.
“Instead, it’s a solution to stop wars with the least possible harm,” he said.
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