Israeli Strikes Hit Southern Lebanon, but Tense Ceasefire Holds

Smoke billows over Beirut's southern suburbs after Israeli strikes, amid hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Baabda, Lebanon, November 25, 2024. (Reuters)
Smoke billows over Beirut's southern suburbs after Israeli strikes, amid hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Baabda, Lebanon, November 25, 2024. (Reuters)
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Israeli Strikes Hit Southern Lebanon, but Tense Ceasefire Holds

Smoke billows over Beirut's southern suburbs after Israeli strikes, amid hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Baabda, Lebanon, November 25, 2024. (Reuters)
Smoke billows over Beirut's southern suburbs after Israeli strikes, amid hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Baabda, Lebanon, November 25, 2024. (Reuters)

Israeli jets Sunday launched an airstrike over a southern Lebanese border village, while troops shelled other border towns and villages still under Israeli control, Lebanon's state-run National News Agency reported.

The attacks come days after a US-brokered ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah went into effect. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strike in the village of Yaroun, nor did the Hezbollah. Israel continues to call on displaced Lebanese not to return to dozens of southern villages in this current stage of the ceasefire. It also continues to impose a daily curfew for people moving across the Litani River between 5 pm and 7 am, The AP reported.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and the Lebanese military have been critical of Israeli strikes and overflights since the ceasefire went into effect, accusing Israel of violating the agreement. The military said it had filed complaints, but no clear military action has been taken by Hezbollah in response, meaning that the tense cessation of hostilities has not yet broken down.

When Israel has issued statements about these strikes, it says they were done to thwart possible Hezbollah attacks.

The United States military announced Friday that Major General Jasper Jeffers alongside senior US envoy Amos Hochstein will co-chair a new US-led monitoring committee that includes France, the UN peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon known as UNIFIL, Lebanon, and Israel. Hochstein led over a year of shuttle diplomacy to broker the ceasefire deal, and his role will be temporary until a permanent civilian co-chair is appointed.

Lebanon meanwhile is trying to pick up the pieces and return to some level of normal life after the war that decimated large swaths of its south and east, displacing an estimated 1.2 million people. The Lebanese military said it detonated unexploded munitions left over from Israeli strikes in southern and eastern Lebanon. Elsewhere, the Lebanese Civil Defense said it removed five bodies from under the rubble in two southern Lebanese towns over the past 24 hours.

The first phase of the ceasefire is a 60-day cessation of hostilities where Hezbollah militants are supposed to withdraw from southern Lebanon north of the Litani River and Israeli troops withdraw from southern Lebanon into northern Israel. Lebanese troops are to deploy in large numbers in the south, effectively being the only armed force in control of the south alongside UNIFIL peacekeepers.

But challenges still remain at this current stage. Many families who want to bury their dead deep in southern Lebanon are unable to do so at this point.

The Lebanese Health Ministry and military allocated a plot of land in the coastal city of Tyre for those people to be temporarily laid to rest. Dr. Wissam Ghazal of the Health Ministry in Tyre said almost 200 bodies have been temporarily buried in that plot of land, until the situation near the border calms down.

“Until now, we haven’t been able to go to our village, and our hearts are burning because our martyrs are buried in this manner,” said Om Ali, who asked to be called by a nickname that means “Ali’s mother” in Arabic. Her husband was a combatant killed in the war from the border town of Aita el-Shaab, just a stone’s throw from the tense border.

“We hope the crisis ends soon so we can go and bury them properly as soon as possible, because truly, leaving the entrusted ones buried in a non-permanent place like this is very difficult,” she said.

In the meantime, cash-strapped Lebanon is trying to fundraise as much money as it can to help rebuild the country the war cost some $8.5 billion in damages and losses according to the World Bank, and to help recruit and train troops to deploy 10,000 personnel into southern Lebanon. Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri also called for parliament to convene to elect a president next month to break a gridlock of over two years and reactivate the country's crippled state institutions.



What Makes Greenland a Strategic Prize at a Time of Rising Tensions? And Why Now? 

A person walks on a snow covered road, ahead of the March 11 general election, in Nuuk, Greenland, March 9, 2025. (Ritzau Scanpix/Mads Claus Rasmussen via Reuters) 
A person walks on a snow covered road, ahead of the March 11 general election, in Nuuk, Greenland, March 9, 2025. (Ritzau Scanpix/Mads Claus Rasmussen via Reuters) 
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What Makes Greenland a Strategic Prize at a Time of Rising Tensions? And Why Now? 

A person walks on a snow covered road, ahead of the March 11 general election, in Nuuk, Greenland, March 9, 2025. (Ritzau Scanpix/Mads Claus Rasmussen via Reuters) 
A person walks on a snow covered road, ahead of the March 11 general election, in Nuuk, Greenland, March 9, 2025. (Ritzau Scanpix/Mads Claus Rasmussen via Reuters) 

When US President Donald Trump first suggested buying Greenland in 2019, people thought it was just a joke. No one is laughing now.

Trump’s interest in Greenland, restated vigorously soon after he returned to the White House in January, comes as part of an aggressively “America First” foreign policy platform that includes demands for Ukraine to hand over mineral rights in exchange for continued military aid, threats to take control of the Panama Canal, and suggestions that Canada should become the 51st US state.

Why Greenland? Increasing international tensions, global warming and the changing world economy have put Greenland at the heart of the debate over global trade and security, and Trump wants to make sure that the US controls this mineral-rich country that guards the Arctic and North Atlantic approaches to North America.

Who does Greenland belong to? Greenland is a self-governing territory of Denmark, a long-time US ally that has rejected Trump’s overtures. Denmark has also recognized Greenland’s right to independence at a time of its choosing.

Amid concerns about foreign interference and demands that Greenlanders must control their own destiny, the island’s prime minister called an early parliamentary election for Tuesday.

The world’s largest island, 80% of which lies above the Arctic Circle, is home to about 56,000 mostly Inuit people who until now have been largely ignored by the rest of the world.

Why are other countries interested in Greenland? Climate change is thinning the Arctic ice, promising to create a northwest passage for international trade and reigniting the competition with Russia, China and other countries over access to the region’s mineral resources.

“Let us be clear: we are soon entering the Arctic Century, and its most defining feature will be Greenland’s meteoric rise, sustained prominence and ubiquitous influence,” said Dwayne Menezes, managing director of the Polar Research and Policy Initiative.

“Greenland — located on the crossroads between North America, Europe and Asia, and with enormous resource potential — will only become more strategically important, with all powers great and small seeking to pay court to it. One is quite keen to go a step further and buy it.”

The following are some of the factors that are driving US interest in Greenland.

Arctic competition

Following the Cold War, the Arctic was largely an area of international cooperation. But climate change, the hunt for scarce resources and increasing international tensions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are once again driving competition in the region.

Strategic importance

Greenland sits off the northeastern coast of Canada, with more than two-thirds of its territory lying within the Arctic Circle. That has made it crucial to the defense of North America since World War II, when the US occupied Greenland to ensure that it didn’t fall into the hands of Nazi Germany and to protect crucial North Atlantic shipping lanes.

The US has retained bases in Greenland since the war, and the Pituffik Space Base, formerly Thule Air Force Base, supports missile warning, missile defense and space surveillance operations for the US and NATO. Greenland also guards part of what is known as the GIUK (Greenland, Iceland, United Kingdom) Gap, where NATO monitors Russian naval movements in the North Atlantic.

Natural resources

Greenland has large deposits of so-called rare earth minerals that are needed to make everything from computers and smartphones to the batteries, solar and wind technologies that will power the transition away from fossil fuels. The US Geological Survey has also identified potential offshore deposits of oil and natural gas.

Greenlanders are keen to develop the resources, but they have enacted strict rules to protect the environment. There are also questions about the feasibility of extracting Greenland’s mineral wealth because of the region’s harsh climate.

Climate change

Greenland’s retreating ice cap is exposing the country’s mineral wealth and melting sea ice is opening up the once-mythical Northwest Passage through the Arctic.

Greenland sits strategically along two potential routes through the Arctic, which would reduce shipping times between the North Atlantic and Pacific and bypass the bottlenecks of the Suez and Panama canals. While the routes aren’t likely to be commercially viable for many years, they are attracting attention.

Chinese interest

In 2018, China declared itself a “near-Arctic state” in an effort to gain more influence in the region. China has also announced plans to build a “Polar Silk Road” as part of its global Belt and Road Initiative, which has created economic links with countries around the world.

Then-US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo rejected China’s move, saying: “Do we want the Arctic Ocean to transform into a new South China Sea, fraught with militarization and competing territorial claims?” A Chinese-backed rare earth mining project in Greenland stalled after the local government banned uranium mining in 2021.

Independence

The legislation that extended self-government to Greenland in 2009 also recognized the country’s right to independence under international law. Opinion polls show a majority of Greenlanders favor independence, though they differ on exactly when that should occur. The potential for independence raises questions about outside interference in Greenland that could threaten US interests in the country.