Tarek Chouiref<\/p>\n
31 July 2026\u2022Update: 31 July 2026<\/p>\n
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said early Friday that Israeli forces had blown up a tunnel system used by the Hezbollah group in southern Lebanon.<\/p>\n
In a joint statement, they said the tunnels in the Beaufort area formed a key part of Hezbollah\u2019s plan to infiltrate communities in the Galilee.<\/p>\n
They noted that around 700 tons of explosives were used in the operation, describing it as part of an ongoing campaign to dismantle Hezbollah\u2019s infrastructure in southern Lebanon.<\/p>\n
The statement said the operation came after Hezbollah\u2019s \u201cblatant violation\u201d of the ceasefire agreement in Lebanon.<\/p>\n
Earlier, Lebanese media reported a series of explosions as Israeli forces detonated explosives in the town of Hadatha, the outskirts of Deir Mimas near Beaufort Castle and the area between Arnoun and Yahmar.<\/p>\n
The developments came despite the signing of the US-sponsored “framework formula” agreement between Lebanon and Israel on June 26.<\/p>\n
The agreement provides for a gradual Israeli withdrawal from all occupied Lebanese territory in exchange for the deployment of the Lebanese army along with the disarmament of armed groups, in an apparent reference to Hezbollah.<\/p>\n
On July 21, the Lebanese army began deploying in the town of Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh as part of the first phase of implementing the agreement following the Israeli army’s withdrawal. Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh is one of the “pilot areas” included in the first phase.<\/p>\n
Despite the agreement, Israel continues to occupy areas in southern Lebanon, some for decades and others since the 2023-2024 war. During its latest operations, Israeli forces also advanced more than 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) into Lebanese territory.<\/p>\n
Since March 2, Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed 4,333 people and injured 12,236 others, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tarek Chouiref 31 July 2026\u2022Update: 31 July 2026 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":567830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43,180804],"class_list":["post-567829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news","tag-sitekeywords"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=567829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/567830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}