For the first time since a tenuous ceasefire took effect in mid-April, Israeli warplanes struck Hezbollah infrastructure in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley over the weekend, marking a dramatic geographical expansion of a conflict that Washington insists is still contained by a truce. The raids, confirmed by Israeli army radio and Lebanese media, came hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the military to hit Hezbollah “with force” in retaliation for a volley of rockets and drones aimed at northern Israel and Israeli positions inside Lebanese territory. What little remained of calm was shattered, exposing the ceasefire as little more than a diplomatic fiction.

The truce, initially brokered by President Donald Trump on 16 April and extended again last week for a further three weeks, had already been hollowed out by mutual recrimination. Hezbollah, justifying its own strikes as a response to what it says are more than five hundred Israeli violations — including airstrikes, demolition of homes, and the killing of civilians — warned it would continue to retaliate so long as Israel keeps attacking. Netanyahu, for his part, insisted that Israeli operations were being conducted according to rules agreed with both the United States and Lebanon, and that Israel retains full freedom of action to counter direct and emerging threats. Viewed from Tel Aviv, that licence stems from intimate coordination with Washington; in Beirut, however, Hezbollah immediately demanded the Lebanese state clarify whether it had indeed granted such a dangerous prerogative, accusing Netanyahu of fabricating Lebanese consent to drive a wedge between the government and the armed group.

The military picture is contradictory. Israeli media report that the army has begun withdrawing part of its manoeuvring force from southern Lebanon, with the headquarters of Division 162 already pulled back from the northern front. Yet troops still in the field press operations towards the so-called “yellow line”, with Hebrew-language assessments forecasting weeks more of grinding combat around Bint Jbeil. Far from a withdrawal, the simultaneous opening of a front in the Bekaa suggests a strategy of calibrated escalation designed to pressure Hezbollah while avoiding, for now, the pulverisation of Beirut’s southern suburbs.

Inside Lebanon, the strain is palpable. The spectacle of direct negotiations under American auspices — Trump himself presided over a second round at the White House — has inflamed an already fragile political balance. Opponents of Hezbollah see a rare opportunity to redress the state’s monopoly on force; the party of God, however, reads the diplomacy as an attempt to disarm it by proxy. A recent security operation in southern Lebanon, in which the State Security apparatus detained individuals linked to weapons transfers, only deepened mutual mistrust, laying bare the chasm between Lebanon’s official security institutions and an entrenched armed movement.

The wider regional canvas offers no comfort. In Tehran, a parliamentary committee unveiled an eleven-point plan to block Israeli-linked shipping from the Strait of Hormuz — a card played just as the Lebanese front simmers. Analysts in London note that the synchronisation is no coincidence: Iran is signalling that any attempt to squeeze Hezbollah on the battlefield will carry a price in the Gulf waterways that underpin global energy markets.

Looking ahead, the ceasefire is being tested to destruction. The Trump administration, which touted its extension as a diplomatic breakthrough, now confronts a reality in which the distinction between truce and war has all but vanished. Whether the coming days bring a genuine de-escalation or a horrific unravelling depends on a triangular negotiation in which Washington, Tehran and the fractured Lebanese state must each discover a ladder to descend. None, so far, appears willing to climb down first.