Israel threatens ongoing strikes on Lebanon until Hezbollah is disarmed
Israel issued a strong warning on Friday, stating that it will continue its military operations in Lebanon until the Hezbollah militant group is fully disarmed.
An Israeli military evacuation call issued ahead of Thursday's strikes sent huge numbers of residents of the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital, long a bastion of Hezbollah, fleeing for their lives, News.Az reports, citing foreign media.
The attack on what the Israeli military said was Hezbollah's underground drone factories came on the eve of Eid al-Adha, one of the main religious festivals of the Muslim calendar.
The strikes came around an hour after Israel's military spokesman issued an evacuation call, and sent plumes of smoke billowing over Beirut.
The attack came six months after a ceasefire agreement was sealed in a bid to end hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel.
"There will be no calm in Beirut, and no order or stability in Lebanon, without security for the State of Israel," Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said in a statement.
"Agreements must be honoured and if you do not do what is required, we will continue to act, and with great force."
Under the ceasefire brokered by the United States and France, Lebanon committed to disarming Hezbollah, which was once reputed to be more heavily armed than the state itself.
Hezbollah sparked months of deadly hostilities by launching cross-border attacks on northern Israel in what it described as an act of solidarity with its Palestinian ally Hamas following its October 7, 2023 attack.
The war left Hezbollah massively weakened, with a string of top commanders including its longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah killed and weapons caches dotted around Lebanon incinerated.
Israel has carried out repeated strikes on south Lebanon since the truce, but strikes targeting Beirut's southern suburbs have been rare.
"Following Hezbollah's extensive use of UAVs as a central component of its terrorist attacks on the State of Israel, the terrorist organisation is operating to increase production of UAVs for the next war," the military said, calling the activities "a blatant violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon".
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