By Isabel Kershner and Christina Goldbaum
The war betweenIsraeland Iran-backed Hezbollah appeared to ease on Sunday, a day after the Israeli government ordered the army to limit defensive actions only inLebanon.
There were no reports of Israeli strikes in Lebanon or Hezbollah attacks on Israelis until late afternoon. However, it was not clear whether the new directive, announced late Saturday, would resolve the friction that led to deadly clashes on Friday and Saturday and threatened to derail a tentative US-Iran peace deal.
President Donald Trump expressed frustration with Iran over Lebanon on Sunday in a social media post.
“Iran must immediately stop their high-paying INTERESTS in Lebanon from causing trouble,” he wrote. “If they don’t, we will hit Iran very hard again, just like we did last week, only harder!!!”
Ceasefires in Lebanon have been declared, broken and restored multiple times in recent weeks, but fighting has continued amid disagreements over what constitutes defensive action by Israeli forces.
“There has never been and there is no restriction on IDF soldiers in Lebanon to act to eliminate threats,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement on Sunday, referring to the Israeli military.
The fighting was centered around the Tebni area and nearby Ali al-Taher, a strategic ridge overlooking the large city of Nabatiyeh in southern Lebanon.
The Israeli military says the area serves as a major stronghold for Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, and contains significant underground infrastructure used by the group.
Visiting troops in southern Lebanon on Sunday, Israel’s military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, said the objective was to protect communities in northern Israel and that the operations in the Ali al-Taher and Beaufort area in the south were intended to serve that purpose.
“This is an underground military fortress that Hezbollah spent 20 years building,” he said.
A statement from the Israeli military late Saturday said Israeli forces should only operate inside the country’s self-proclaimed “security zone,” a swath of territory its troops control in southern Lebanon that lies about 6 miles north of the Israeli border.
The Israeli military recently released an updated map of the area that placed Tebni and Ali al-Taher just inside the area under Israeli control. The spine has emerged as a dangerous flashpoint.
Early Friday, four Israeli soldiers, including a battalion commander, were killed in a tank attack that the military says was targeted by Hezbollah. A fifth soldier was killed in the area on Saturday, triggering waves of Israeli retaliatory attacks. The military said Hezbollah had fired more than 50 rockets targeting its soldiers operating in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah said on Saturday it had attacked Israeli forces advancing towards Ali al-Taher.
With both sides accusing each other of violating an earlier ceasefire, Hezbollah said that while the group remained “committed” to the agreement, it “would not tolerate any attempt by the enemy to capture additional territory or expand its occupation”.
The Israeli government said on Saturday that the military struck 300 targets on Friday and Saturday in response to recent Hezbollah attacks and killed around 100 members of the group.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry reported casualties in nearly two dozen cities, and President Joseph Aoun accused Israel of targeting “innocent civilians.”
A Hezbollah statement on Sunday said Lebanese authorities must work “to ensure a complete and unconditional withdrawal” of Israel from Lebanese territory.
The center of the southern city of Nabatiyeh was devastated by clashes in recent days, with the chilly wind from Israeli bombardment still hanging in the air on Sunday.
Fatima Moussa, 66, stood outside the rubble of her home on Sunday morning as emergency workers tried to put out a fire burning in the rubble. She had returned hours earlier after hearing that her four-story home had been leveled by an Israeli airstrike on Saturday.
“Our memories, all our years of hard work, were all in this house,” she said. “It’s all gone.”
Hostilities in Lebanon have repeatedly threatened to derail progress toward a US-Iran peace framework agreement.
On Saturday afternoon, the Iranian military announced the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil shipping route, in response to Israel’s actions in Lebanon. The US military said maritime traffic in the strait continued to flow and asserted that Iran “does not control” the strait. The prolonged disruption of shipping on the waterways since the start of the war has driven up energy prices and rattled global markets.
Shortly after the Iranian announcement, and in retaliation for Hezbollah attacks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Katz instructed the military to cease fire, according to two Israeli officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal decision-making.
The Israeli military then issued a statement late Saturday saying it had received “updated directives” from the country’s political leaders and would not “carry out proactive attacks” in Lebanon.
But it reserved the right to respond if Hezbollah did not adhere to the ceasefire and targeted Israeli troops or civilians.
The statement also said the army was continuing to operate in the Tebni area “to remove immediate threats”, including Hezbollah militants and infrastructure, both above and below ground.
