TEL AVIV, Israel — Israel’s military launched what it described as its most powerful attacks on Lebanon on Wednesday, killing hundreds of people and turning joy over the ceasefire in Iran into panic.
The change in mood was quick, and you could almost feel it in the background details: in parts of Beirut, responders moved through rubble while acrid smoke drifted upward, and the air carried that sharp, burnt smell that sticks to clothes. Misryoum newsroom reported sprawling strikes across parts of Beirut, southern Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley.
Lebanon’s civil defense service said the new strikes had killed at least 254 people and injured 1,165. Lebanon’s Health Ministry put the preliminary death toll from the new strikes at 203—adding more casualties to the more than 1,500 in Lebanon already killed in the more than five-week-old Israeli invasion.
At the same time, Hezbollah had halted fire on northern Israel after the ceasefire between Iran, the U.S. and Israel took effect, the group said in a statement. But Misryoum editorial desk noted that Israel’s leadership had already been signaling Tuesday night—public statements and diplomacy, basically—that it remained determined to degrade Hezbollah even while the U.S. was expected to lead talks with Iran.
The political fallout started almost immediately. Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, described by Misryoum as a key player in Iran’s current power structure, said the attacks violated the negotiating framework that President Donald Trump had agreed to, according to a post on X. French President Emmanuel Macron also weighed in after talking to both Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, saying the ceasefire must include Lebanon. He wrote that he hoped the ceasefire would be fully respected by each belligerent across all areas of confrontation, including in Lebanon, and said it was a necessary condition for the ceasefire to be credible and lasting.
By Wednesday evening, Misryoum analysis indicates Israel’s decision to amplify attacks was starting to wear holes in the delicate U.S.-led diplomacy with Iran, threatening to cleave divisions in the wartime alliance. Iran threatened to suspend traffic through the Strait of Hormuz in response to Israel’s attacks on Lebanon, according to Fars, a semi-official news agency affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Trump told PBS News in a phone call after a morning Pentagon briefing that Lebanon is not included in the ceasefire deal “because of Hezbollah,” but that the Lebanon issue would “get taken care of.”
There were also signals from the Israeli side that the operation could move further. Misryoum newsroom reported that the airstrikes came a few hours after a statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office rejected an earlier announcement by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif that the ceasefire deal would include Lebanon. Lebanese authorities said more than 1.2 million people have been displaced since Hezbollah reopened its fight against Israel last month.
The Israeli military said its strikes hit 100 targets within 10 minutes, striking Hezbollah headquarters, military arrays and command-and-control centers. The Israel Defense Forces “eliminated” more than 40 Hezbollah militants, said its international spokesperson, Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, who said the strikes were the “result of meticulous planning over weeks.” In statements Wednesday, the IDF implied the attacks may expand further into northern Beirut, which has not historically been associated with Hezbollah or its mostly Shia Muslim supporters. Hezbollah, meanwhile, tried to assure the public that Lebanon would soon be included in the broader regional treaty, saying it was on the “threshold of a major historic victory” and warning displaced families to wait for a formal ceasefire.
Hezbollah first fired projectiles over Lebanon’s southern border with Israel in early March, days after Israel and the U.S. began their offensive against Iran. That solidarity pushed Lebanon into another grinding conflict with Israel less than a year and a half after the U.S. negotiated a ceasefire in Israel’s previous offensive against Hezbollah.
Weeks into a sprawling Israeli invasion in Lebanon, evacuation orders for Lebanese civilians now cover about 15% of Lebanese territory, according to Reuters. For many civilians, the renewed fighting simply made them feel like unwilling participants again. “Hopefully a ceasefire will be reached,” Ahmed Harm, a 54-year-old man displaced from Beirut’s southern suburbs, told Misryoum. “Lebanon can’t take it anymore. The country is collapsing economically, and everything is collapsing.” And even as that sentence hung in the air, the idea of a ceasefire—any ceasefire—felt suddenly both necessary and fragile, like something that might not hold once the next set of decisions lands.
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