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TEL AVIV — Israel pounded southern Lebanon with a series of airstrikes Friday in what analysts and officials on the ground said were some of the most significant strikes since Israel and Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire in November.
Video showed massive plumes of gray smoke rising above a hilltop, and Lebanon's official National News Agency reported an Israeli airstrike hit a residential building in Nabatieh.
The Washington Post was unable to immediately verify who or what struck the residential building in Nabatieh; neither the Israel Defense Forces nor Lebanon's government responded to requests for comment.
Lebanon's Health Ministry said one person was killed and 21 were injured during the strikes. The National News Agency reported there were more than 20 hits in under 15 minutes.
The Israel Defense Forces said Israeli air force fighter jets targeted a "significant underground project" used by Hezbollah in the Beaufort Ridge in southern Lebanon. The site was "completely taken out of use" following the strikes, the IDF said. Beaufort Ridge is about five miles from Nabatieh.
The Trump administration argues a ceasefire between Israel and Iran could help secure peace on Israel's other fronts, including Gaza, as well as lead to normalization agreements with some of Israel's Arab neighbors.
In its Friday statement, Israel said Hezbollah had been making "rehabilitation attempts" in southern Lebanon; the November ceasefire deal required Lebanese forces to ensure that all Hezbollah infrastructure is removed from the area.
Between Nov. 27 - the day after the deal was announced - and June 9, 172 Lebanese deaths and 409 injuries have been reported as a result of Israeli attacks, said Hussein Chaabane, a Beirut-based investigative journalist with Legal Agenda who has been tracking the strikes. The toll does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Despite a mid-February deadline for Israeli forces to withdraw, the IDF has remained in five strategic positions in southern Lebanon close to the border. And entire areas in the south have become "unofficial buffer zones," where residents who dare to travel face sniper fire and drone strikes by the IDF.
Hassan Wazni, the director of Nabih Berri Governmental Hospital, said the strikes were so strong that they shook the ground, reminding him of the period of heavy strikes last year.
David Wood, a Lebanon analyst with the International Crisis Group, said that while some people in other parts of the country feel the war has ended, "that has never been the case in southern Lebanon."
"There is a feeling that the ceasefire doesn't protect them, that Israel is doing whatever it pleases in a military sense, and that the United States - which is the chair of the monitoring committee - is allowing them to do so," he said. He referred to a committee including representatives from Lebanon, Israel, France, the United States and the United Nations that is charged with monitoring violations of the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire.
Wood added that the longer the strikes continue and civilians are killed, the more frustration in southern Lebanon could grow, including with the new government for failing to protect its residents.
"The longer this goes on and the state can't protect them," he warned, "the more likely people are to turn to Hezbollah and groups like it that could emerge."