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Israel Steps Up Strikes in South Lebanon, Targeting Both Hamas and Hezbollah
Smoke rises after Israeli strikes following Israeli military’s evacuation orders, in Chehour, southern Lebanon, Nov. 19, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ali Hankir
The Israeli military stepped up airstrikes in south Lebanon on Wednesday, killing at least one person as it pressed a campaign of near-daily attacks which it says is designed to block a military revival by Iran-backed Hezbollah in the border area.
Israel has accused Hezbollah, an internationally designated terrorist organization, of trying to rearm since a US-backed ceasefire halted its war with the Lebanese Islamist group last year. The group says it has abided by requirements for it to end its military presence in the border region near Israel, and for the Lebanese army to deploy there.
On Wednesday, residents fled after Israel issued warnings on social media identifying buildings it planned to strike in four villages in the south, saying it was attacking Hezbollah military infrastructure.
Strikes on the villages – Deir Kifa, Chehour, Aainata and Tayr Filsay – sent thick plumes of smoke into the air.
Earlier in the day, one person was killed in an Israeli strike in the southern village of Al-Tiri, the Lebanese health ministry said. The Israeli military said it had killed a Hezbollah member who was working to “reestablish Hezbollah’s readiness in the area.”
The operation came one day after Israel on Tuesday carried out one of its deadliest strikes in Lebanon since last year’s war with Hezbollah, killing 13 people in a Palestinian camp near the southern city of Sidon, the Lebanese health ministry said.
The Israeli military said that it struck a compound in the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp used by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, which is also backed by Iran, to carry out attacks on Israel.
According to the Israel Defense Forces, “the military compound that was attacked was used by the terrorists of the Hamas terrorist organization for training and training in order to plan and execute terrorist plots against IDF forces and the State of Israel.”
The military added that prior to the attack, “measures were taken to reduce the chance of civilian casualties, including the use of precision munitions, aerial observations, and other intelligence.” The statement also said that Israel “is acting against the entrenchment of the Hamas terrorist organization in Lebanon” and wherever it operates.
“Last night we precisely attacked a Hamas facility in Lebanon that was used for training and recruitment, and which was part of a plot to carry out attacks against Israel,” IDF spokesperson Col. Avichai Edrei posted in Arabic on social media on Wednesday. “We attacked the facility, where Hamas has repeatedly called on its ‘youths’ to join its terror ranks. It was not an innocent facility, as the media claimed.”
Hamas said Israel‘s claim was “pure fabrication,” saying there were no military establishments in refugee camps and the site hit was a sports field.
A Hamas official told Reuters on Wednesday that none of the Islamist group‘s members were amongst the dead.
However, the IDF Spokesperson in response published an invitation from Hamas to operatives to come to the site to enlist in the organization.
“We will not allow terror to raise its head again. When we say we will not tolerate any threat on the northern border, we mean all the terrorist groups that operate in the area and plot against our security,” Edrei said in his social media post.
Under the terms of the truce brokered by the US and France, Lebanon‘s armed forces were to confiscate “all unauthorized arms,” beginning in the area south of the Litani River – the zone closest to Israel.
Hezbollah Secretary General Naim Qassem has said the agreement only applies to the area south of the Litani rather than all Lebanon.
Lebanon says Israel has violated the agreement by continuing to occupy positions in Lebanon‘s south.
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UK PM Starmer Says There Could Be New Powers to Ban Pro-Palestinian Marches
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer gives a media statement at Downing Street in London, Britain, April 30, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Jack Taylor/File photo
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the government could ban pro-Palestinian marches in some circumstances because of the “cumulative effect” the demonstrations had on the Jewish community after two Jewish men were stabbed in London on Wednesday.
Starmer told the BBC that he would always defend freedom of expression and peaceful protest, but chants like “Globalize the Intifada” during demonstrations were “completely off limits” and those voicing them should be prosecuted.
Pro-Palestinian marches have become a regular feature in London since the October 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel that triggered the Gaza war. Critics say the demonstrations have generated hostility and become a focus for antisemitism.
Protesters have argued they are exercising their democratic right to spotlight ongoing human rights and political issues related to the situation in Gaza.
Starmer said he was not denying there were “very strong legitimate views about the Middle East, about Gaza,” but many people in the Jewish community had told him they were concerned about the repeat nature of the marches.
Asked if the tougher response should focus on chants and banners, or whether the protests should be stopped altogether, Starmer said: “I think certainly the first, and I think there are instances for the latter.”
“I think it’s time to look across the board at protests and the cumulative effect,” he said, adding that the government needed to look at what further powers it could take.
Britain raised its terrorism threat level to “severe” on Thursday amid mounting security concerns that foreign states were helping fuel violence, including against the Jewish community.
“We are seeing an elevated threat to Jewish and Israeli individuals and institutions in the UK,” the head of counter-terrorism policing, Laurence Taylor, said in a statement, adding that police were also working “against an unpredictable global situation that has consequences closer to home, including physical threats by state-linked actors.”
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War Likely to Resume After Trump’s Rejection of Latest Proposal, Says IRGC General
Iranians carry a model of a missile during a celebration following an IRGC attack on Israel, in Tehran, Iran, April 15, 2024. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
i24 News – A senior Iranian military figure said that fighting with the US was “likely” to resume after President Donald Trump stated he was dissatisfied with Tehran’s latest proposal, regime media reported on Saturday.
The comments of General Mohammad Jafar Asadi, one of the top Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders, were relayed by the Fars news agency, considered as a mouthpiece of the the powerful paramilitary body.
“Evidence has shown that the Americans do not not adhere to any commitments,” Asadi was quoted as saying.
He further added that Washington’s decision-making was “primarily media-driven aimed first at preventing a drop in oil prices and second at extricating themselves from the mess they have created.”
Iranian armed forces are ready “for any new adventures or foolishness from the Americans,” he said, going to assert that the Iran war would prove for the US a tragedy comparable with what was for Israel the October 7 massacre.
“Just as our martyred Leader said that the Zionist regime will never be the same as before the Al‑Aqsa Storm operation [the name chosen by Hamas leadership for the October 7, 2023 massacre in southern Israel], the United States will also never return to what it was before its attack on Iran,” he said. “The world has understood the true nature of America, and no matter how much malice it shows now, it is no longer the America that many once feared.”
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Trump Says US Navy Acting ‘Like Pirates’ to Carry Out Naval Blockade of Iranian Ports
A view of Iranian-flagged cargo ship M/V Touska as the US Navy Arleigh Burke-class Aegis guided missile destroyer USS Spruance conducts its interception in a location given as the north Arabian Sea, in this screen capture from a video released April 19, 2026. Photo: CENTCOM/Handout via REUTERS
President Donald Trump said on Friday the US Navy was acting “like pirates” in carrying out Washington’s naval blockade of Iranian ports during the US and Israel’s war against Iran.
Trump made the comments while describing the seizure by US forces of a ship a few days ago.
“We took over the ship, we took over the cargo, we took over the oil. It’s a very profitable business,” Trump said in remarks on Friday evening. “We’re like pirates. We’re sort of like pirates but we are not playing games.”
Some of Tehran’s vessels have been seized by the US after leaving Iranian ports, along with sanctioned container ships and Iranian tankers in Asian waters.
Iran has blocked nearly all ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz apart from its own since the start of the war. Trump has imposed a separate blockade of Iranian ports.
The US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28. Iran responded with its own strikes on Israel and Gulf states that host US bases. US-Israeli strikes on Iran and Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed thousands and displaced millions.
The war has raised oil prices and led to the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for about 20 percent of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments.
Trump, who has offered shifting timelines and goals for the war that remains unpopular in the US, has faced widespread condemnation over his comments on the conflict, including when he threatened to destroy Iran’s entire civilization last month.
Many US experts said last month that American strikes on Iran may amount to war crimes after Trump threatened to target civilian infrastructure.