Aerial attack in Nabatiyeh area killed Hezbollah members, Israeli military saysIsraeli forces attacked and killed several Hezbollah members near a security zone it had carved in southern Lebanon, the Israeli military said on Sunday, two days after the two countries signed a peace deal that the Iranian-backed group opposes.On Friday, Lebanon and Israel signed a US-brokered deal to end the war between Israel and Shiite Hezbollah. International powers welcomed the agreement. Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem described it as null and said that the group would not abandon what he termed an armed resistance. The aerial attack "eliminated Hezbollah terrorists" who were armed with rocket-propelled grenades in the Nabatiyeh area, the Israeli military said. Its statement did not say how many members of the group were supposedly killed.The army "will continue to act to eliminate threats and not allow Hezbollah to harm the citizens of the State of Israel and its forces", the statement added.The official Lebanese news agency reported two drone attacks on Friday on the southern outskirts of the city of Nabatiyeh. It gave no details.Hezbollah, which has followed the religious dictates of Iran's clerical leadership since it was created in the 1980s, is the only militia to have kept its weapons after the end of Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war. This is despite a peace agreement based on the disbanding of all the country's militias. Many in Lebanon, particularly members of other sects, oppose the group's de facto ultimate say on the country's foreign policy, and its military interventions in several parts of the Middle East on behalf of Tehran. Hezbollah says it is defending Lebanon's sovereignty and against threats to the country.The group attacked Israel several times since Israel withdrew from south Lebanon in 2000, ending a 22-year occupation. Israel first invaded Lebanon in 1978 to eliminate Palestinian groups who were operating in the area. Shortly after the outbreak of the Iran war this year, Hezbollah again attacked Israel, which responded with reoccupying parts of southern Lebanon, and declaring its intention to create a security zone larger than the area it had occupied from 1978 to 2000. President Donald Trump signalled US opposition to such a plan. The June 17 deal that halted the Iran war curbed Israeli aerial attacks deep into Lebanon. However, Israel continued to attack Hezbollah strongholds in the south, and hundreds of thousands of people, mainly Shiites, remain displaced.Iran and the US traded fire on Sunday, each accusing the other of violating a ceasefire as missile and drone strikes targeted American military sites in Bahrain and Kuwait and tensions over the Strait of Hormuz escalated.Updated: June 28, 2026, 8:16 AM