The IDF air force launched a wave of strikes Wednesday evening against Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, following evacuation warnings issued earlier by the Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesman.
Lebanese media reported strikes on the villages of Jarjouaa and al-Kfour in the Nabatieh district, as well as on the village of Qanarit near the coastal city of Sidon. Evacuation warnings were also issued for the villages of al-Khraib and Ansar.
The Lebanese television network Al-Mayadeen, which is affiliated with Hezbollah, reported that at least one person was lightly wounded in a strike in Qanarit. According to the report, the injured person was a journalist who was present at the site along with reporters from other media outlets. Al-Mayadeen also reported that residents in several neighborhoods of Jarjouaa refused to leave, saying they would not comply with what the network described as Israeli threats. The report said a house that had been warned was completely destroyed.
Earlier Wednesday, the military said it killed Abu Ali Salameh, identifying him as a Lebanese terrorist who served as Hezbollah’s liaison officer in the southern Lebanese village of Yanouh.
According to the military, Salameh was responsible for overseeing Hezbollah activity in the village, enabling the group to operate within civilian areas and private property and to embed what Israel described as terrorist infrastructure among the local population.
The military said that on December 13 it contacted the ceasefire enforcement mechanism and requested that a Hezbollah weapons depot in Yanouh be dismantled. In his role as the village’s liaison officer, Salameh received a report from the Lebanese army and passed it on to other Hezbollah operatives, the military said.
When Lebanese army forces arrived, Hezbollah operatives prevented them from dismantling the infrastructure by creating a gathering that allowed the group to remove weapons from the site, according to the Israeli military. It said that during the incident, several suspicious boxes were taken out through the rear door of the property. “At the conclusion of the event, Salameh coordinated with the Lebanese army to document the site without the weapons, thereby claiming the compound was empty,” the military said, adding that his actions constituted a violation of understandings between Israel and Lebanon.
The IDF has carried out near-daily strikes on Hezbollah targets since a ceasefire agreement ended large-scale fighting in Lebanon in late 2024. Under the agreement, the Lebanese army was tasked with enforcing the disarmament of southern Lebanon, but Israel says Hezbollah has obstructed those efforts and prevented the local army from fulfilling its mandate.
The government in Beirut has been reluctant to confront Hezbollah directly, fearing such a move could further destabilize the country, which has faced years of economic and social crises, and potentially trigger internal conflict.
Hezbollah was given a deadline to disarm by January 1, but that deadline has passed. Despite threats from Israel and the United States, fighting along the northern border has continued at a low intensity, marked by what Israel describes as repeated enforcement strikes.