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Lebanon Urges US Ambassador to Push Israel to Halt Bombardments

Smoke rises as a result of an Israeli strike on a southern Lebanon village as seen from the Upper Galilee on the Israel-Lebanon border, 11 May 2026. (EPA)
Smoke rises as a result of an Israeli strike on a southern Lebanon village as seen from the Upper Galilee on the Israel-Lebanon border, 11 May 2026. (EPA)
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Lebanon Urges US Ambassador to Push Israel to Halt Bombardments

Smoke rises as a result of an Israeli strike on a southern Lebanon village as seen from the Upper Galilee on the Israel-Lebanon border, 11 May 2026. (EPA)
Smoke rises as a result of an Israeli strike on a southern Lebanon village as seen from the Upper Galilee on the Israel-Lebanon border, 11 May 2026. (EPA)

Lebanese leaders urged the US ambassador to Beirut to pressure Israel to halt its attacks as it pounded the country with airstrikes on Monday despite a ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war. 

Lebanese authorities raised the overall death toll from Israeli strikes since March 2 to 2,869 people. That figure includes dozens killed since the truce went into force on April 17. 

Israel's military said one of its soldiers had been killed a day earlier in fighting near the border with Lebanon, bringing its losses to 18 troops and a civilian contractor since the war began. 

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam met separately with US ambassador Michel Issa in preparation for a third meeting between Lebanese and Israeli representatives set to take place in Washington on Thursday and Friday. 

Aoun "stressed ... the necessity of pressure on Israel to halt fire and military operations and the destruction ‌and bulldozing of homes", the presidency said.  

Israel has been demolishing villages in the ‌south, saying it is acting against Hezbollah fighters embedded in civilian areas.  

Aoun and Issa also reviewed "developments related" to a third round of talks due in Washington between Lebanese and Israeli government representatives, the presidency said. 

Salam said he asked Issa to "exert pressure on Israel to stop the ongoing attacks and violations, in order to consolidate the ceasefire". 

Israel has intensified its attacks on Lebanon of late, with weekend strikes reaching as close as around 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the capital Beirut. 

On Monday, Lebanon's official National News Agency (NNA) reported Israeli airstrikes on more than 30 locations in the south and east. 

It reported casualties in several areas, including south Lebanon's Zebdine, where it said an Israeli drone struck two people "while they were distributing bread" in a municipality vehicle to residents who had refused to leave the town. 

Under the terms of the ceasefire published by Washington, Israel reserves the right to act against "planned, imminent or ongoing attacks". 

- Third round of talks - 

Washington last month hosted two rounds of talks between the Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors to Washington, the highest-level ‌contacts between Israel and Lebanon in decades. The US will facilitate the third round on May 14 and 15, the State Department ⁠said.  

Lebanon's delegation will ⁠be headed by former ambassador to Washington Simon Karam. Aoun, who nominated Karam for the role, gave him his directives during a meeting on Saturday, the presidency said.  

Beirut's decision to hold face-to-face contacts with Israel reflects a deep divide in Lebanon over Hezbollah's arsenal and the group's decision to attack Israel.  

Critics accuse the group of unilaterally dragging Lebanon into war. Hezbollah has demanded the government cancel the talks. 

- Displacement - 

Israel's army issued an evacuation warning ahead of strikes on seven south Lebanon towns and two others in the Bekaa region in the country's east. 

The NNA reported a "large wave of displacement" in West Bekaa as hundreds of families fled the threatened towns. 

Lebanese authorities say the war has displaced more than one million people. 

Hezbollah claimed at least 20 attacks on Israeli military targets in south Lebanon, including bulldozing equipment, in what it said was retaliation for ceasefire violations. 

The Israeli army said two Hezbollah drones had damaged "unmanned engineering vehicles" in south Lebanon, and that its troops had "eliminated" a fighter cell there. 

Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the wider Middle East war on March 2 when it launched rockets at Israel to avenge the killing of Iran's supreme leader in US-Israeli strikes. 

Israel responded with airstrikes and a ground invasion. Its troops are operating inside an Israeli-declared "yellow line" that runs around 10 kilometers (six miles) north of Lebanon's border where Lebanese residents have been warned not to return. 

In an interview with Al Arabiya channel on Sunday, Salam said the country was "facing the occupation of 68 Lebanese villages as a result of this war that was imposed on us". 

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Arab World

Hezbollah Rejects Latest Ceasefire Agreement as Israeli Strikes Kill 4 in Lebanon

Destroyed buildings resulting from Israeli shelling on Beirut's Southern Suburb, where a Hezbollah flag is raised (EPA)
Destroyed buildings resulting from Israeli shelling on Beirut's Southern Suburb, where a Hezbollah flag is raised (EPA)
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Hezbollah Rejects Latest Ceasefire Agreement as Israeli Strikes Kill 4 in Lebanon

Destroyed buildings resulting from Israeli shelling on Beirut's Southern Suburb, where a Hezbollah flag is raised (EPA)
Destroyed buildings resulting from Israeli shelling on Beirut's Southern Suburb, where a Hezbollah flag is raised (EPA)

Hezbollah on Thursday rejected the latest ceasefire agreement reached between Israel and the Lebanese government, and the militant group demanded a complete Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon as continued fighting there hampered moves to end the Iran war.

The Hezbollah announcement came as Israeli strikes killed at least four people, according to local authorities, and a UN peacekeeper was killed in the crossfire.

Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem, in a written statement read on TV, called the negotiations “absurd, humiliating, and insulting.” He said the agreement’s demand that Hezbollah fighters leave southern Lebanon under fire would mean “surrender, defeat and achieving the enemy’s goals.”

“What we are concerned about is an end to the aggression, ceasefire and Israel’s withdrawal,” he said, underscoring that Hezbollah had not made any commitment to stop fighting. “So long as our villages are not safe and are being bombed and destroyed and our people are killed," he said, northern Israel “will not be safe.”

The fighting in Lebanon, where Israeli forces have seized large swaths of the south, threatens efforts to end the Iran war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a key transit point for oil and gas. Its closure has jolted the world economy.

Iran has demanded that any lasting truce extend to Lebanon. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces elections later this year, wants to press ahead with Israel’s offensive until Hezbollah no longer poses a threat.

US President Donald Trump, who faced a rare rebuke from Congress on Wednesday, has sought to downplay the diplomatic deadlock and the failure of declared ceasefires to end the fighting. He told reporters that in the Middle East, "a ceasefire is when you’re shooting in a more moderate manner.”

Peacekeeper killed in crossfire A Serbian peacekeeper was killed and two others were wounded when a mortar struck their location near Marjayoun, a Christian-majority town that has seen intense fighting, according to the UN mission, known as UNIFIL, and Serbia's Defense Ministry.

Israel later blamed Hezbollah for the firing that killed the UN peacekeeper, without offering evidence. Hezbollah and the UN did not immediately comment on who launched the shells, according to The AP news.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said a drone strike killed a motorcyclist and wounded four people in the village of Maaroub. It said airstrikes on the village of Sohmor in the Bekaa Valley, in eastern Lebanon, killed three people and wounded others. It also reported airstrikes elsewhere in the south.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which has warned people not to go into parts of southern Lebanon where it says it is striking Hezbollah facilities.

Fighting has raged despite declared ceasefires Hezbollah resumed rocket fire days after Israel and the United States launched their surprise Feb. 28 attack on Iran, which backs Hezbollah. Before then, Israel had regularly carried out strikes in Lebanon against what it said were militant targets, often killing civilians, despite an earlier truce reached in 2024.

Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, the Israeli military’s chief of staff, acknowledged Thursday that the ongoing war was straining northern Israeli towns living under the threat of Hezbollah fire. He said Israel's operations in Iran and Lebanon had “created a new security reality,” by weaking Iran and Hezbollah “to an unprecedented degree.”

After Hezbollah's rocket and drone attacks resumed, Israeli troops seized around a fifth of Lebanon, pushing further into the country's south than at any time since the end of Israel’s 1982-2000 occupation.

In the southern city of Sidon, residents reacted to Wednesday's ceasefire announcement with skepticism, saying previous agreements had failed to stop the violence.

“Every few days a ceasefire is announced, but people keep getting killed,” said Mayada Hijazi.

“It’s all talk and no action,” said Salah Nassab. “We keep going back to our homes, and then we get displaced again, back and forth. We’re very tired."

More than 3,500 people have been killed in Lebanon, and over 1.2 million have been displaced. The fighting has killed 27 Israeli soldiers and three civilians.

The ceasefire came from ongoing Israeli-Lebanese talks The latest declared ceasefire came about through US-brokered talks between Israel and Lebanon's government, which accuses Hezbollah of dragging the country into war and had made efforts to disarm it before the latest hostilities.

The ceasefire agreement calls for Lebanon's armed forces to take control of security zones in Lebanon from which the militants would be banned.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on Thursday called the new agreement "the last chance to enter a final and comprehensive ceasefire.” He said Lebanon was ready to implement Wednesday's deal once he receives responses from relevant factions in Lebanon, including Hezbollah. The United States — and Trump himself — would determine how and when the deal is implemented, Aoun told journalists on Thursday.

The agreement terms Hezbollah “an enemy" of Israel, the US and Lebanon and calls for dismantling it. The government has promised to do so in the past but does not have the capabilities to disarm Hezbollah by force.

The latest agreement did not say when Israel would withdraw from southern Lebanon but said the US would support the Lebanese army as it works to assert control in areas where Hezbollah has long wielded power.

Arab World

Israel Plans Major Settlement Push Across Occupied West Bank

A photograph taken from a land corridor that Israel plans to use for its controversial E1 settlement project, near the Arab town of al-Tur in Israel-annexed east Jerusalem, shows camels belonging to Bedouins gathered on a hill overlooking the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim (background) on May 31, 2026. (Photo by AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP)
A photograph taken from a land corridor that Israel plans to use for its controversial E1 settlement project, near the Arab town of al-Tur in Israel-annexed east Jerusalem, shows camels belonging to Bedouins gathered on a hill overlooking the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim (background) on May 31, 2026. (Photo by AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP)
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Israel Plans Major Settlement Push Across Occupied West Bank

A photograph taken from a land corridor that Israel plans to use for its controversial E1 settlement project, near the Arab town of al-Tur in Israel-annexed east Jerusalem, shows camels belonging to Bedouins gathered on a hill overlooking the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim (background) on May 31, 2026. (Photo by AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP)
A photograph taken from a land corridor that Israel plans to use for its controversial E1 settlement project, near the Arab town of al-Tur in Israel-annexed east Jerusalem, shows camels belonging to Bedouins gathered on a hill overlooking the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim (background) on May 31, 2026. (Photo by AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP)

Israel's hardline finance minister announced on Wednesday a major expansion by more than 2,000 homes of three Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank that Palestinians hope will be part of a future independent state.

Most nations consider Israeli settlements there to be illegal under international law and a major obstacle to a two-state solution for long-term peace.

Bezalel Smotrich, who holds authority over parts of Israel's civilian administration in the West Bank, said a planning committee approved the construction of 2,162 new Jewish homes.

They include 1,006 units in a new settlement near Jerusalem, 922 near the Palestinian city of Nablus and 234 near ⁠Hebron.

"We are continuing ⁠to build the Land of Israel in practice," said Smotrich, an ultranationalist sanctioned by Britain, France and others who accuse him of inciting violence against Palestinians.

Smotrich has denounced the sanctions against him, saying the measures would not change Israeli policy.

The new homes would "strengthen our hold on the land, reinforce Israel's security, and establish clear facts on the ground that prevent the creation of an Arab terror state ⁠in the heart of the country," Smotrich said in a statement, without specifying when construction would begin.

Since becoming a minister three years ago, Smotrich has sought to tighten Israel's control and presence in the West Bank while advocating against the idea of a Palestinian state.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing government has overseen the significant expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the establishment of new settlements.

Palestinians want the West Bank as part of a future independent state that includes East Jerusalem and Gaza. Around half a million Israelis live in the West Bank among about 3 million Palestinians.

US President Donald Trump's administration has been ⁠far less critical of ⁠the fast-expanding Israeli settlements.

However, Trump did say last September that he would not allow Israel to annex the West Bank, angering some right-wing Israeli lawmakers.

Condemning Wednesday's announcement, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' office warned that Israel's "provocative" policies were pushing the region towards more rounds of violence and called on the US to stop the Israeli "madness.”

Smotrich on May 19 said he would wage "war" on the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited civic rule in the West Bank, after he said he was told the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor had sought a confidential arrest warrant against him. The ICC has not confirmed that.

Arab World

UNIFIL Peacekeeper Killed in South Lebanon

A United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) convoy maneuvers within southern Lebanon, as seen from the Israeli side of the border in the Upper Galilee, northern Israel, 02 June 2026, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. EPA/ATEF SAFADI
A United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) convoy maneuvers within southern Lebanon, as seen from the Israeli side of the border in the Upper Galilee, northern Israel, 02 June 2026, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. EPA/ATEF SAFADI
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UNIFIL Peacekeeper Killed in South Lebanon

A United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) convoy maneuvers within southern Lebanon, as seen from the Israeli side of the border in the Upper Galilee, northern Israel, 02 June 2026, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. EPA/ATEF SAFADI
A United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) convoy maneuvers within southern Lebanon, as seen from the Israeli side of the border in the Upper Galilee, northern Israel, 02 June 2026, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. EPA/ATEF SAFADI

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon said Thursday that a peacekeeper was killed and two others wounded when shelling hit their base in the country's south the previous night.

"A UNIFIL peacekeeper died early this morning from critical injuries sustained when mortar shells struck his position," a statement from the force said, adding that an investigation had been launched.

The peacekeeper was Serbian, the country's defense ministry confirmed on Thursday, specifying that he died from injuries caused by a missile strike on the UN base.

"Senior Sergeant Milovan Jovanovic was given emergency medical care at a hospital inside the base after being wounded and then transported by helicopter to the University Medical Center in Beirut, where he died," the statement said.