Israel has bombed Lebanon 3,500 times during truce

BEIRUT: Israel has ​carried out nearly 3,500 air ​strikes on Lebanon and hundreds of controlled explosions since the US announced a ceasefire for the country on April 16, Lebanon's defence minister, Michel Menassa, said on Monday. The US-brokered ceasefire came into effect just after midnight on April 17, with Israeli troops still positioned ⁠deep inside southern Lebanon. While it has largely halted air strikes on Beirut ⁠and its suburbs, the truce has failed to halt fighting in southern Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah. During a cabinet meeting, Menassa said that from April ‌17 to June 7, Israel had carried ​out 3,491 air ⁠strikes, 407 controlled demolitions and six 'razing' operations, or demolitions — which have ​left some entire villages in ‌the southernmost strip of Lebanon entirely flattened.
The statistics were later published on X by the office of ​Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Salam said the latest escalation between Iran and Israel had caused additional waves of displacement, straining Lebanon's ability to host fleeing families.
Already, more than 1 million people - a fifth of Lebanon's population - have been displaced by Israel's ​strikes and evacuation warnings across Lebanon since the war erupted on March 2. The ​latest conflict ⁠broke out when Hezbollah fired rockets on Israel in support of its ally Iran, which was being struck by Israel and the United States. Hezbollah has ​continued firing at Israel and has rejected US-mediated talks ⁠between Lebanese and ​Israeli officials aimed at bolstering the ceasefire with a lasting agreement.
Israel struck the outskirts of Beirut on Sunday for the first time since the US announced a truce plan for Lebanon last week, and Iranian officials threatened to retaliate, casting the talks to end the wider war into new jeopardy. Iran has long said any peace deal with the United States would depend on a ceasefire also holding in Lebanon, which Israel invaded in March in pursuit of Hezbollah fighters who fired across the border in solidarity with Tehran.
Iran's chief peace negotiator, parliamentary speaker Mohammed Baqer Qalibaf, said US bases and Israeli assets were legitimate targets because of hostile acts including the 'violation of agreements over Lebanon'. 'They showed that they only understand the language of power,' he wrote on X. Ebrahim ⁠Rezaei, an influential hardline lawmaker who serves as spokesperson for the Iranian parliament's national security committee, posted on X that Iran would deliver a 'decisive and painful response' to Sunday's Israeli strikes ⁠on Lebanon. 'Look at the sky of the occupied territories tonight,' he wrote, an apparent reference to some form of attack on Israel itself. Iran has not targeted Israel directly since a ceasefire in the wider war in April, although Hezbollah has done so.
An Israeli official, responding to the apparent threat, said that Israel would retaliate against any attacks on its territory from Iran, and consider it 'an opportunity to renew the campaign'. Netanyahu said on Sunday's strike on Beirut's southern outskirts, a district known as Dahiyeh that has long been a Hezbollah stronghold, was ordered in response to Hezbollah firing toward Israel. The Israeli military earlier said it had intercepted two projectiles fired over the border. It issued an evacuation order for the southern Lebanese city of Tyre and surrounding areas ahead of possible ​strikes there. — Reuters