Lebanon29 April, 20263 min read
Israeli Strike Destroys Last Bridge Over Litani River as Fighting Rages in Bint Jbeil
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Fighting continues in southern Lebanon, with Bint Jbeil as a focal area. Widespread destruction in southern Lebanon, including demolished buildings and damaged infrastructure.
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Litani Bridge Falls
An Israeli strike destroyed the last bridge over the Litani River into Lebanon's south, fully severing almost a tenth of Lebanon from the rest of the country, as intense fighting continued in south Lebanon on Thursday. Fighting raged in the Lebanese border town of Bint Jbeil, a Hezbollah stronghold and strategic prize that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Israeli military was about to "overcome," in a briefing a day earlier. A senior Lebanese official told Reuters that Lebanon’s assessment was that Israel wanted to secure a victory in Bint Jbeil before diplomatic progress could be made.
Israeli warplanes also unleashed an intense barrage of strikes Thursday on Nabatiyeh, hitting near the town's industrial zone and outside a supermarket along Nabih Berri Avenue, a main thoroughfare lined with shops and residential buildings. The CBC report said Israeli attacks have killed more than 2,100 people in Lebanon since March 2 and forced more than 1.2 million from their homes, Lebanese authorities say.
Demolitions and Displacement
Satellite images and videos obtained by BBC Verify showed towns and villages in southern Lebanon being levelled by Israeli demolitions, and BBC Verify analysis found more than 1,400 buildings had been destroyed since 2 March based on verified visual evidence. BBC Verify reported that Defence Minister Israel Katz ordered on 22 March to "accelerate the destruction of Lebanese homes" near the Israeli border based on the "model in Gaza" as part of its campaign against Hezbollah. The BBC said the systematic demolition of these towns and villages may amount to a war crime, international law experts told BBC Verify, while the Israel Defense Forces said it operates in accordance with the Law of Armed Conflict.
The BBC also said more than 1.2 million people are estimated to have been displaced across Lebanon, including 820,000 from the south, according to figures by the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). In Naqoura, BBC Verify said explosions from Israeli demolitions damaged the headquarters of the UN's peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, and Kandice Ardiel described the "scale of the destruction" in Naqoura as "truly heartbreaking."
Diplomacy, Security Zone
As fighting and demolitions continued, CBC reported that three Lebanese officials told Reuters on Thursday that President Joseph Aoun would not hold a call with Netanyahu in the near future. CBC said the Lebanese Embassy in Washington had informed the U.S. administration of the position before a call between Aoun and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday, dealing a blow to U.S. efforts to expand contacts between the enemy states. The BBC described Israel Katz’s plan for an Israeli-controlled "security zone" extending from the border to the Litani river, which would take up about 10% of Lebanon's territory, and said Netanyahu described it as to "thwart the threat of invasion".
BBC Verify reported evidence of controlled Israeli demolitions in at least seven border towns and villages, including Taybeh about 4km from the border, where eleven verified videos showed whole sections blown up simultaneously. In the same period, Al-Manar TV Lebanon’s broadcast framed attacks as Islamic Resistance fighters targeting vehicles and soldiers of the Israeli enemy army in Rashaf and an Israeli enemy army Hummer vehicle in Naqoura, with specific timings listed for Friday, May 29, 2026.