Escalation in the Region: Israel's Strikes and Regional Tensions
Israel has carried out airstrikes in southern Lebanon, resulting in at least six deaths, including three paramedics working at a health centre. This incident occurred just hours after Israeli envoys had reached an agreement with the Lebanese government to extend a ceasefire.
In addition, Israel claimed to have killed Izz al-Din al-Haddad, the Hamas military chief, in a targeted strike in Gaza on Friday. Al-Haddad was described by Israel’s army as one of the senior Hamas military commanders who were involved in planning and executing the attacks on 7 October 2023. These attacks led to the death of about 1,200 people in southern Israel and resulted in more than 250 hostages being taken. A Hamas spokesperson confirmed the killing on social media.
Reports from US and Israeli press indicated that Donald Trump had been briefed on his military options in Iran, should he decide to break a five-week-old truce and resume strikes in the hope of forcing concessions at the negotiating table. This suggests that the region may be heading towards a possible return to full-scale war.
Lebanon’s state-run media reported that at least five villages in the south of the country had been hit by strikes. The Israeli military confirmed on Saturday that it was targeting what it described as “Hezbollah infrastructure” in southern Lebanon. Lebanese authorities stated that an airstrike on Friday had hit a clinic run by the Hezbollah-linked Islamic Health Committee, resulting in the deaths of six people, three of whom were paramedics.
An Israeli military statement said it had killed Hezbollah militants preparing to fire rockets at its troops in southern Lebanon. Al-Haddad’s family confirmed his death in Friday’s strike to the Associated Press. Six other people, including his wife and daughter, were also killed, according to reports. His two sons were killed earlier in the war.
His body was wrapped in Hamas and Palestinian flags as it was carried by mourners at Saturday’s funeral in Gaza City. Al-Haddad joined Hamas when it was established in the 1980s, and was a member of the Qassam Brigades’ Majd section tasked to go after collaborators with Israel. He was also a member of Hamas’ Military Council, the highest group of commanders that played a key role in the attacks that sparked the war.
Israel’s army chief of staff called his killing a significant operation and said that Israel would continue pursuing its enemies to hold them accountable. The new strikes, which triggered a fresh exodus of civilians from the south, came hours after envoys from Israel and Lebanon completed a round of talks in Washington, with an agreement to extend a month-long partly observed ceasefire for a further 45 days, and to establish a US-supervised security mechanism between their armies.
Hezbollah, however, has denounced the talks, while Israel has only partly observed the ceasefire ordered by Trump on 17 April, restricting attacks on Beirut and northern Lebanon in general while focusing its military operations in the south, where its troops have clashed with Hezbollah fighters.
Israel has also kept up operations in Gaza against Hamas, confirming on Saturday that it had killed Haddad, the latest acting Hamas military chief to die in Gaza, and the last surviving Hamas senior official suspected of planning the attack on southern Israel in October 2023, which killed 1,200 people and ignited the latest Gaza war.
Israel has accused Hamas of violating the fragile eight-month-old ceasefire in Gaza by refusing to disarm. For its part, Hamas has blamed Israel for failing to abide by the first phase of the truce, continuing airstrikes and stealthily moving the agreed demarcation line between the two forces westwards into Hamas-controlled parts of Gaza.
In recent days, the Israeli media has been predicting a return to full-scale war across the region, as truces fray amid scant diplomatic progress. As Trump returned to the US from a visit to China on Friday, the New York Times reported that he had been briefed on US options for returning to the offensive in Iran, but that he had yet to make a decision.
Pakistani-led mediation has failed to bring diplomatic progress in more than a month since Islamabad brokered a ceasefire in the Iran war, with the negotiating positions of the US and Iran still far apart.
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