Tel Aviv: Israeli forces have intensified operations against the Hezbollah after taking over the 900-year-old Beaufort Castle and a strategic ridge in southern Lebanon.
This came after Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered troops to move further into Lebanon, despite a ceasefire announced more than six weeks ago.
Saturday witnessed one of the heaviest days of Hezbollah fire toward northern Israel since the April ceasefire, following which the Israeli troops advanced and captured the Castle and the ridge on Sunday.
Netanyahu released a video message from his office in which he hailed the Israeli capture of the Castle and the surrounding strategic ridge, calling it a “dramatic shift” in Israeli policy as troops moved deeper into southern Lebanon.
“The capture of Beaufort is a dramatic stage and a dramatic shift in the policy we are leading. Now my directive is to deepen and expand our hold on areas that had been under Hezbollah’s control,” he said.
Hezbollah has now resorted to the use of cheap, easy-to-assemble kamikaze drones that are hard for air defences to thwart. These have killed several Israeli troops in southern Lebanon, as reported by News18.
The Iran-backed militia is also continuing i
ts rocket and drone attacks on Israel, triggering sirens in the Acre and the Haifa area. This was the first attack on the major northern urban area in nearly a month, according to The Times of Israel.
An Israeli soldier was killed on Saturday night during clashes with the Hezbollah near the Beaufort ridge. A day later, four soldiers were lightly injured when an explosive-laden Hezbollah UAV struck a military position near the northern border.
The Beaufort Castle has played a crucial military role for centuries due to its strategic location. Its seizure by Israel after days of intense fighting and airstrikes is being viewed as both a symbolic and military victory.
The fortress “became a symbol of deep division within our society”, Netanyahu recalled, after Israeli troops captured the castle in one of the early battles of the First Lebanon War in 1982.
Israel maintained control over the castle and the surrounding ridge throughout its 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon until its withdrawal in 2000.
On Monday, Lebanese president Joseph Aoun said that his country was facing “a vicious and reprehensible Israeli aggression”, after Israel captured the Beaufort Castle. Aoun condemned the Israeli offensive in a post on X and pledged to “work to end the suffering of the Lebanese people, and people in the south in particular”.
The UN Security Council is also set to hold an emergency meeting on Lebanon on Monday after Netanyahu’s latest remarks. The meeting was called by France in view of the escalating violence in Lebanon after French president Emmanuel Macron said that “nothing justifies the major escalation under way in south Lebanon”.
More than 3,370 people have died so far in Lebanon in the Israeli-Hezbollah war, according to the Lebanese government. Israel says 24 of its soldiers and four civilians have been killed over the same period.