Israel announced this Sunday night that it has activated alerts in “several areas” in the north of the country after detecting several missiles launched from Iran towards Israeli territory. The Islamic Republic’s attack, the first since the ceasefire agreed in April, comes hours after Benjamin Netanyahu’s government bombed the suburbs of Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, a red line for Tehran. Netanyahu had launched that bombardment despite US President Donald Trump demanding that he not do so.
“The population is requested to follow the instructions of the Home Front Command,” the Israeli army statement said. At this time, the Israeli Air Force is operating to “intercept and attack where necessary to neutralize the threat,” according to the military statement, which concludes by ensuring that the Israeli air defense system “is not infallible, so it is important to follow the instructions of the Home Front Command.”
The Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, had claimed responsibility in the morning for a bombing against an alleged “terrorist command center” in the suburbs of Beirut, the capital of Lebanon. In a joint statement with the head of Defense, Israel Katz, Netanyahu presented it as a response to the attacks that the Lebanese militia party Hezbollah had launched hours earlier against Israeli territory, the first in days.
The aggression shakes the fragile diplomatic progress between the Governments of Lebanon and Israel, which on Wednesday renewed the supposed truce between the two under the mediation of the United States. , when he announced that he had ordered Israel to cancel its planned attacks on Beirut
“They do not respect the ceasefire nor believe in dialogue,” the president of the Iranian Parliament, Mohamed Baqer Qalibaf, denounced on social media after the attack. The semi-official Iranian agency Tasnim had warned on Monday that Tehran was linking the continuation of talks with Washington to the Israeli de-escalation it demands in Lebanon.
“The naval blockade [sobre Irán] and the violation of the agreements related to Lebanon show that they only understand the language of power,” Qalibaf added. He added that the “green light” that Iran considers that the United States has given Israel to attack the suburbs of Beirut turns the American bases in the region and Israel “into legitimate targets.”
For his part, Ebrahim Rezaei, spokesman for the National Security Committee of the Iranian Parliament, has anticipated “a decisive and painful response” for the attack in Dahiyeh. “Look at the sky over the occupied territories tonight,” he concluded, referring to Israel.
Images of the bombing show a seven-story residential tower with the façade split in half, in an attack that came without prior warning and that has caused two fatalities and 11 injuries, according to a preliminary count mentioned by the Lebanese state news agency. Saudi television Al Hadath reported that Israel notified Washington that it was going to carry out the attack, without specifying whether it received the green light.
The attacked location is located in the vicinity of Lebanon’s only international airport. The facility surrounds Dahiyeh, the Beirutian periphery where Hezbollah has roots, as well as in the south and east of the country, and where it offers public services. Since 2023, Israeli bombings have wreaked havoc in that area, home to 700,000 people, even though it is more than 80 kilometers from Israel and no projectiles have been fired from there.
During the phone call in which, last Monday, he demanded that Netanyahu not bomb Beirut, a frustrated Trump went so far as to call the Israeli prime minister a “fucking crazy man,” according to the Axios portal and later confirmed by the American president. “You would be in jail if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your ass,” he snapped, in apparent reference to his efforts to get the president of Israel to grant Netanyahu an extraordinary pardon for the corruption crimes for which he is accused.
Although Trump put the brakes on them, Israeli leaders assure that their agreement with the United States involves having freedom of action to bomb Dahiyeh (the suburbs of Beirut) if Hezbollah attacks Israeli territory. “If there is no calm here, there will not be calm there,” Katz summarized last Monday.
“We are fighting terrorism on all fronts,” Netanyahu had stated this morning, at the beginning of a government meeting. His speech, like the atmosphere in Israel, had a particularly aggravated tone this Sunday, killing one citizen and wounding five others before being shot dead.
“In Lebanon we have eliminated 350 terrorists in the last week alone,” the president stated, without providing evidence. The Lebanese Ministry of Health has recorded 3,613 fatalities since March — 20% of them, 720 people, were women, minors or health workers. “We are completing the elimination of terrorist villages near our border. Hezbollah is fleeing. We will not allow them to fire on our communities,” Netanyahu concluded.
“In Gaza, we are cornering Hamas from all sides,” he continued. The Israeli leader has reiterated that they continue to eliminate “the commanders” of the militia, preventing it from rearming. This Sunday, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reports two deadly bombings in Khan Younis and another in al Mawasi, with 10 fatalities in total. The day before, civil defense reported eight deaths after a bombing on an area of tents for forcibly displaced people.
Control of Gaza
Netanyahu has also assured that the army already controls “60%” of Gazan territory and openly recognizes the failure to comply with a truce for the Strip that was closed last October, and that limited the Israeli presence to less than half.
According to the cessation, that occupation must be lifted gradually as Hamas advances in its disarmament, something that the militia refuses without guarantees of a political process that guarantees Palestinian sovereignty. In fact, Katz recalled at the end of May that Israel continues to envision what it describes as the “voluntary migration” of Gazans, and which human rights groups classify as a project of ethnic cleansing.
Lebanon, on the northern Israeli border, is also stuck in a ceasefire with no practical application or horizon for improvement. Despite the existence of a Lebanese Government – the first – that wants the disarmament of Hezbollah and that is open to negotiating with Israel, presenting itself as a potential ally in the fight against the armed wing of the pro-Iranian movement, Israel maintains a large-scale offensive on the Arab country that makes difficult the disarmament through dialogue that the political and military authorities of Lebanon desire, according to the Lebanese detractors of Hezbollah.
On Saturday, Israel killed three soldiers – including a brigadier general – from the regular Lebanese army, which remains neutral in the conflict and which in 2025 managed to requisition 10,000 rockets from the militia in southern Lebanon, before the restart of the war in March derailed the project decreed last August to achieve a state monopoly on weapons.
Just as it does in Syria, where Netanyahu’s government ignores the hand extended by Ahmed al Shara’s authorities and strengthens its military presence in new territories occupied after the fall of Bashar al Assad, Israel guides its actions in Lebanon through strictly military considerations.
After having detected this Sunday “aerial infiltrations” over the Israeli communities of Metula and Misgav Am, bordering Lebanon, the attack in Dahiyeh has met the expectations of many Israelis in the area. “Finally, it happens,” the mayor of Metula, David Azoulay, said in the local press, arguing that “all of Lebanon must burn,” and not just the south, “the moment Israel is fired upon, whether in Metula or Tel Aviv.”
The Israeli army has also reiterated the evacuation order for Tire, the largest southern city and the fourth in the country, with 200,000 residents. The order is in addition to the one that Israel maintains on everything south of the Zahrani River, an area with 2,000 square kilometers that represents 14% of Lebanon. The Israeli Government warns that any movement in the area is subject to the danger of being shot. These threats keep 1.4 million people, a quarter of the Lebanese population, forcibly displaced.
