The tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, in effect since April 17, has all but unravelled as Israeli airstrikes on southern Lebanon killed at least thirteen people on Friday and a further seven on Saturday, according to Lebanese officials. The deadliest single attack struck the village of Habboush, where eight people including a child and two women were killed and twenty-one wounded, despite the Israeli military having issued an evacuation order for the area hours earlier. Saturday’s strikes hit a car in Kfar Dajal, a home in Lwaizeh, and the village of Shoukin, while residents of nine southern villages were instructed to leave. The Israeli military said it had destroyed some fifty Hezbollah sites on Friday alone, and warned that operations would continue as long as the militant group posed a threat to its troops stationed inside Lebanon.

Hezbollah, for its part, has not remained passive. The Iran-backed group fired rockets and launched explosive-laden drones at Israeli positions in southern Lebanon on Saturday, though the Israeli military reported no injuries, adding that several projectiles were intercepted or fell short. Viewed from Beirut, the escalating violence underscores the fragility of a truce that was never a formal peace agreement but rather a mutual understanding brokered by international mediators. Lebanese officials, already grappling with a paralysed economy and political vacuum, see the strikes as a violation of the ceasefire’s spirit, if not its letter. From Tel Aviv, security analysts note that the Israeli government views Hezbollah’s refusal to disengage from the border and its periodic rocket fire as justifying sustained military pressure, especially after the devastating October 7 attacks shifted the country’s strategic calculus towards pre-emptive action.

Observers in Washington and London have watched the deterioration with growing concern, as neither the United States nor European powers have been able to broker a durable cessation of hostilities. The Biden administration has continued to arm Israel while calling for restraint, a contradiction that many Middle Eastern diplomats argue undermines its credibility as a mediator. Meanwhile, the death toll in Lebanon has climbed steadily since mid-April, with the Lebanese health ministry now reporting dozens of civilian casualties. Looking ahead, the trajectory is ominous. Without a renewed diplomatic push that addresses Israel’s security demands and Hezbollah’s insistence on remaining in southern Lebanon, the current cycle of strike and counter-strike risks spiralling into a wider conflict that neither side can afford but both seem increasingly willing to accept.