JERUSALEM: Iran’s proxy Hezbollah fired some 200 rockets and drones at the Jewish state last night and Thursday in what Israeli media described as an “integrated joint attack by Hezbollah and Iran.”
The attacks prompted heavy retaliatory attacks by the Israeli army on Hezbollah strongholds on the outskirts of Beirut.
The Israeli Defense Forces said: “The IDF is operating with determination against the terrorist organization Hezbollah following its deliberate decision to attack Israel on behalf of the Iranian regime. The IDF will not tolerate any harm to Israeli civilians and will respond with force to any threat posed to the State of Israel.”
The terrorist group called its new operation ‘Eaten Straw’ and claimed, among other things, to have attacked Israeli military locations on the outskirts of Tel Aviv.
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Hezbollah members salute and raise the group’s yellow flags during the funeral of their fallen comrades Ismail Baz and Mohamad Hussein Shohury, who were killed in an Israeli attack on their vehicles, in Shehabiya in southern Lebanon on April 17, 2024. (AFP via Getty Images)
Just days before Wednesday’s attacks, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun accused Hezbollah of pushing Lebanon to become “a second Gaza.”
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A fireball rises from the scene of an Israeli airstrike that targeted an area in the southern suburbs of Beirut on the night of March 10-11, 2026. (Fadel itani/AFP via Getty Images)
The Lebanese Armed Forces have also failed to meet President Trump’s deadline to disarm the terrorist organization Hezbollah by 2025.
The Lebanese government announced Tuesday that it was interested in direct talks with Israel to end the current conflict with Hezbollah, but an Israeli official claimed that Beirut “did not influence Hezbollah’s behavior in any way,” the Times of Israel quoted a report from news site Y-Net.
Israeli UN Ambassador Danny Danon told members of the United Nations Security Council in New York on Wednesday that “Lebanon now faces two options: either the Lebanese government takes real action and reins in Hezbollah, or Israel uses its power to dismantle this terrorist organization. There is no other option.”
Edy Cohen, a Lebanese-born Israeli scholar of Hezbollah, dismissed the Lebanese government’s overtures to Israel as political theater. He referred to the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, which ended with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which required the Lebanese state and army to disarm Hezbollah, as a failed attempt.
A woman uses a mobile phone while lying on a mattress in a train station used as an underground bomb shelter in Tel Aviv on March 10, 2026. (Olympia De Maismont/AFP via Getty Images)
At a UN Security Council meeting on Wednesday, Lebanese Ambassador Ahmad Arafa told the council: “The Lebanese people do not want war, and the Lebanese government is moving forward in implementing its decisions and will not back down,” The National reported.
According to the National Report, Arafa said: “In our modern history, no Lebanese government has shown this level of courage and determination to reclaim state authorityto limit weapons to legitimate state institutions and to extend state control over the entire Lebanese territory solely through its own armed forces.
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An Israeli official told the Times of Israel that “the Lebanese government must get a grip on their country, otherwise Hezbollah parts of Beirut will soon become like Gaza.”
