Beirut (Lebanon) (AFP) – Israel carried out deadly strikes in south Lebanon on Saturday and Hezbollah maintained it had the right to respond, hours after the United States announced a renewed ceasefire in fighting that had strained a fledgling deal with Iran.
Issued on: 20/06/2026 - 12:16
4 min Reading time
US President Donald Trump and his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian this week signed a preliminary agreement to halt the Middle East war on all fronts, including Lebanon – a key demand of Tehran's. But follow-up talks scheduled for Friday in Switzerland were indefinitely postponed as Israel launched a wave of strikes in Lebanon that left dozens of people dead after four of its soldiers were killed in combat, sparking a furious reaction at home. On Friday afternoon, a US official announced a new ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah brokered by US and Qatari mediators, with Israel's ambassador to Washington saying it would respect the truce if Hezbollah did. But on Saturday an Israeli military official said it was conducting fresh attacks against the Iran-backed movement, which it accused of having "launched more than 50 projectiles at Israeli forces in southern Lebanon" overnight. Hezbollah has not officially claimed any attacks on Israel or its troops in Lebanon since the ceasefire was announced. Lebanese state media reported Israeli air raids on around 20 locations, with the country's civil defence agency saying 16 people were killed in the Nabatieh area, where an AFP photographer saw smoke rising over the city after strikes. Another AFP journalist on the Israeli side of the border also reported multiple explosions in Lebanon, with smoke billowing behind the historic Beaufort Castle, a strategic position not far from Nabatieh that Israel captured last month. How the Golan Heights emerged as a new front in Israeli expansion 'Right to confront' Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah said Saturday that his group insisted "that the enemy fully and comprehensively respects the ceasefire".
