Israeli Army Raids Nabatieh and Beqaa, Killing More Than 10 as Netanyahu Escalates

Eyes turned to the Lebanon–Israel front as the Israeli army informed residents of northern Israel of its intention to carry out raids along the southern front in the coming hours, alongside an intensification of raids and warnings in the south and the Beqaa.

While Beirut woke to a low-flying drone, the south witnessed violent raids hitting Nabatieh, Tyre, and Marjeyoun, with more than 10 people killed, including children, in raids that targeted the town of Sayr al-Gharbiyah.

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An Israeli air strike hit Jbeichit, and the Israeli army issued urgent evacuation warnings during the day to more than 10 southern towns before later expanding them to include additional towns in Nabatieh and the Beqaa.

In contrast, Hezbollah announced it carried out assault-drone attacks targeting Iron Dome launch platforms and Israeli sites in Branit, Ramim, and Maroun al-Ras, as sirens sounded in the Upper Galilee after drones were spotted coming from Lebanon.

Walid Jumblatt warned in an interview with La Croix that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “will not stop in Lebanon as he did not stop in Gaza,” linking the current escalation to a wider pattern of widening control and “red lines” stretching from Gaza to southern Lebanon and Syria.

The Israeli army said it had attacked more than 85 targets and Hezbollah infrastructure in the last 24 hours, confirming that its operations will continue “in accordance with political leadership directives.”

In the same account of the widening conflict, Hezbollah’s announced assault-drone attacks targeted Iron Dome launch platforms and Israeli sites in Branit, Ramim, and Maroun al-Ras, while sirens sounded in the Upper Galilee after drones were spotted coming from Lebanon.

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Daniel Levy, writing in Chronique de Palestine, argued that Israel’s eleventh “existential war” frames strikes on Iranian civilian areas as a way “to sow chaos,” and he said Israel “invented the term 'Dahiya doctrine'” to describe terrorizing an urban civilian population.

Levy also tied the timing of aggression to Netanyahu’s domestic calculations, writing that “Netanyahu has exhausted his political capital,” and that Israel is preparing to enter campaign mode as the autumn elections approach.

He added that the consensus inside Israel is that “everything will depend on one essential factor: direct U.S. participation in the Israeli military campaign,” presenting U.S. involvement as the decisive variable for how the campaign plays out.

The political stakes of the Gaza war were framed as tightly bound to Netanyahu’s electoral calculations, with Le magazine GEO describing him as a prime minister in survival mode while polls showed him trailing for more than two years.

GEO reported that Netanyahu’s coalition controls only 50 of the 120 seats in the Knesset, and that the Supreme Court ruled the ultra-Orthodox exemption policy violates the principle of equality before the law and must be reformed.

It also said Netanyahu’s government partly rests on the support of ultra-Orthodox parties (18 seats), obtained in exchange for subsidies and exemption from military service, but that “since the October 7 attack, this exemption no longer holds.”

Le Figaro reported that Netanyahu secured a parliamentary majority for the first reading of the 2026 budget bill with 62 votes in favor and 55 against, after he said he was worried ahead of the vote and needed to win back votes of ultra-Orthodox MPs who had left the government in July.

In that same political context, Le Figaro quoted Netanyahu saying, “The last thing we need right now is elections, and it would be a mistake to hold them now,” while noting that failure to pass the budget before March 31 would automatically trigger dissolution of the Knesset and elections before the end of the legislature.