Israel Launches Airstrikes in 12/18 06:07

   

   BEIRUT (AP) -- Israel carried out a series of airstrikes on southern and 
northeastern Lebanon on Thursday as a deadline looms to disarm the militant 
Hezbollah group along the tense frontier.

   The strikes came a day before a meeting of the committee monitoring the 
enforcement of a U.S.-brokered ceasefire that halted the latest war between 
Israel and Hezbollah a year ago.

   It will be the second meeting of the mechanism after Israel and Lebanon 
appointed civilian members to a previously military-only committee. The group 
also includes the U.S, France and the U.N. peacekeeping force deployed along 
the border.

   In Paris, Lebanon's army commander Gen. Rodolph Haikal is scheduled to meet 
on Thursday with U.S., French and Saudi officials to discuss ways of assisting 
the army in its mission to boost its presence in the border area.

   The Lebanese government has said that the army should have cleared all the 
border area south of the Litani river from Hezbollah's armed presence by the 
end of the year.

   The Israeli military said the strikes hit Hezbollah infrastructure sites and 
launching sites in a military compound used by the group to conduct training 
and courses for its fighters. The Israeli military added that it struck several 
Hezbollah military structures in which weapons were stored, and from which 
Hezbollah members operated recently.

   Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said the intense airstrikes 
stretched from areas in Mount Rihan in the south to the northeastern Hermel 
region that borders Syria.

   Shortly afterward, a drone strike on a car near the southern town of Taybeh 
inflicted casualties, NNA said.

   "This is an Israeli message to the Paris meeting aiming to support the 
Lebanese army," Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said about the strikes.

   "The fire belt of Israeli airstrikes is to honor the mechanism's meeting 
tomorrow," Berri added during a parliament meeting in Beirut.

   The latest Israel-Hezbollah war began Oct. 8, 2023, a day after Hamas 
attacked southern Israel, after Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel in 
solidarity with Hamas. Israel launched a widespread bombardment of Lebanon in 
September last year that severely weakened Hezbollah, followed by a ground 
invasion.

   Israel has carried out almost daily airstrikes since then, mainly targeting 
Hezbollah members but also killing 127 civilians, according to the office of 
the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.

   Over the past weeks, the U.S. has increased pressure on Lebanon to work 
harder on disarming Hezbollah.