Israel strikes southern Beirut amid increasing escalation in southern Lebanon

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Israel’s military says its air force carried out an air strike on a southern suburb of the Lebanese capital Beirut on Thursday.

It was not immediately clear what the target of the strike on the suburb of Choueifat was but videos from the area showed white smoke billowing from a residential area. The area is close to Beriut’s international airport.

A ceasefire between Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah was supposed to have taken effect on 17 April but has never been fully observed. Still, Beirut has largely been spared, with Israeli attacks largely focused on Lebanon’s south.

Lebanon was dragged into the wider Middle East war in early March when Hezbollah launched rocket attacks on Israel in retaliation for the US-Israeli attacks on Iran, prompting Israeli strikes and a ground invasion.

Both sides accuse each other of violating the ceasefire and justify their continued attacks by the other sides’s alleged truce violations.

The last time Israel struck Beirut was on 6 May, killing a military official with Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Forces.

A woman checks a destroyed apartment that was hit in an Israeli airstrike in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, Thursday, May 28, 2026.

Strikes intensify in south

Israel also pounded southern Lebanon with strikes earlier on Thursday, which Lebanon’s health ministry said killed at least 11 people, including two children, and wounded 21 others.

Before the attack, Israeli military Arabic spokesperson Avichay Adraee issued warnings to eight buildings in the coastal city of Tyre along the Mediterranean and surrounding neighbourhoods. Many people have fled the area.

Further north in the city of Sidon, an Israeli drone struck an apartment building where some displaced families lived, killing five people and wounding 21 others, among them five children.

A man checks the site of destroyed buildings that were hit in Israeli airstrikes in the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Thursday, May 28, 2026.

In the nearby coastal town of Adloun, an Israeli drone struck a car with a family that was fleeing, killing six people, of which four were two children and their parents, the Lebanese Health Ministry said.

Another drone strike that came without warning killed two people on a motorcycle near Tyre. The target of the attack was not immediately clear, NNA reported.

Elsewhere near the city of Nabatiyeh, the Lebanese military said a soldier was killed in an Israeli drone strike while he was driving his motorcycle.

The Israeli military said on Thursday that a soldier in northern Israel was killed in a Hezbollah drone attack and two reservists were wounded.

Israeli troops advance deeper into Lebanese territory

The intensification comes after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced an expansion in the Israeli military’s attacks in Lebanon and Israeli troops have crossed the Litani River over the past days and issued a warning for residents to leave much of the area.

Hezbollah also claimed dozens of drone and rocket attacks that it says targeted Israeli troops in southern Lebanon and northern Israel.

The group said on Thursday it had launched several attacks on Israeli troops and tanks that had crossed the Litani River into the town of Zawtar al-Sharqieh near Nabatiyeh, as close-range fighting continues.

The Litani River has been a de facto boundary in Lebanon, with large areas to the south under Israeli military occupation.

Israeli soldiers drive a tank inside a village in southern Lebanon, as seen from northern Israel, Tuesday, May 5, 2026.

On Wednesday, the Israeli military also declared all areas south of Lebanon’s Zahrani River, an area roughly 40 kilometres from the border, “combat zones” and told residents to evacuate ahead of attacks against Hezbollah.

Over 1 million people in Lebanon have been displaced by the war between Israel and Hezbollah, and at least 3,269 people have been killed in Israeli strikes, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry, with over 9,800 wounded.

According to Netanyahu’s office, at least 23 Israeli soldiers and a defence contractor have been killed in or near southern Lebanon and two civilians have been killed in northern Israel, the vast majority by drones.

Lebanese and Israeli military officials are set to hold security talks in Washington on Friday.

Hezbollah has dismissed the talks and instead endorsed its key ally Iran, which has made ending the war in Lebanon a condition for its own talks with Washington brokered by Pakistan.