Israeli warplanes carried out a series of airstrikes across southern and eastern Lebanon late Monday and early Tuesday, including an attack in Sidon, the country’s third-largest city.
At around 1 a.m. Tuesday, an Israeli strike destroyed a three-storey commercial building in Sidon, just days before Lebanon’s army chief is due to brief the government on efforts to disarm Hezbollah along the border with Israel.
An Associated Press photographer reported that the building was located in a commercial area filled with workshops and auto repair shops and appeared to be empty at the time of the strike.
At least one person was taken away by ambulance, while rescue teams searched the rubble for possible victims. No fatalities were immediately confirmed.
Earlier on Monday, Israel’s military struck several locations in southern and eastern Lebanon, saying the sites contained infrastructure used by Hezbollah and the Palestinian group Hamas.
Those attacks came nearly two hours after the Israeli army’s Arabic-language spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, issued warnings on social media platform X, saying strikes would target Hezbollah and Hamas positions in two villages in the eastern Bekaa Valley and two villages in southern Lebanon. The later strike in Sidon was not preceded by any warning, and the Israeli military did not immediately comment on it.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported that a house hit in the Bekaa Valley village of Manara belonged to Sharhabil al-Sayed, a Hamas military commander who was killed in an Israeli drone strike in May 2024.
Following the warnings, residents evacuated the targeted areas, and no casualties were reported from those strikes. However, earlier on Monday, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said a drone attack on a vehicle in the southern village of Braikeh injured two people. Israel said that strike targeted two Hezbollah members.
Lebanon’s army began dismantling weapons held by Palestinian factions last year, while the government has pledged that by the end of 2025, areas south of the Litani River near the Israeli border will be cleared of Hezbollah’s armed presence.
The government is set to take up the issue of Hezbollah’s disarmament at a meeting on Thursday, which will be attended by army commander Gen. Rudolph Haikal.
Monday’s strikes occurred in areas north of the Litani River and well away from the Israeli border.
Moves to disarm Hezbollah and Palestinian groups followed a 14-month conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that resulted in the killing of much of the Iran-backed group’s political and military leadership.
That conflict erupted on Oct. 8, 2023, a day after Hamas launched an attack on southern Israel, when Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel in support of Hamas. Israel escalated its campaign in September 2024 with heavy bombardments and a subsequent ground operation, severely weakening Hezbollah.
The fighting ended in November 2024 with a U.S.-brokered ceasefire.
Despite the truce, Israel has continued near-daily airstrikes, mainly targeting Hezbollah fighters. According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, at least 127 civilians have been killed in these post-ceasefire attacks.