What’s happened: Lebanese sources reported an explosion in the Hezbollah dominated Dahiya neighbourhood in southern Beirut, in what transpired to be a precision targeted strike on the fourth floor of a building. According to reports five people were killed, and 25 injured.

• Prime Minister Netanyahu confirmed Sunday night, that the IDF eliminated Ali Tabatabai, Hezbollah’s Chief of Staff. He described Tabatabai as a “mass murderer” whose “hands are soaked in the blood of many Israelis and Americans, and it is not for nothing that the US put a bounty of five million dollars on his head.”
• IDF Chief of Staff Zamir said the operation was “designed to prevent Hezbollah from strengthening and to target precisely those who seek to harm the State of Israel. The IDF remains committed to the understandings agreed upon between Israel and Lebanon, but we shall not allow the terrorist organisation to grow stronger and rearm.”
• Earlier in the weekend the Israeli Air Force carried out a wave of airstrikes against Hezbollah targets across southern Lebanon, killing two Hezbollah operatives.

Context: This is the latest and most significant example of Israel’s new security posture post October 7. This approach rejects containment in favour of acting when it assesses a threat is developing.

• Israeli officials have said Tabatabai was specifically targeted as he was working to rebuild and expand Hezbollah’s military and terrorist capabilities.
• His elimination represents the most significant strike in Lebanon since the ceasefire came into effect a year ago, and is also aimed to disrupt their chain of command. There is added significance that the strike was carried north of the Litani River, and in Beirut itself.
• Over the last year, Israel has eliminated around 340 Hezbollah terrorists operatives (around half of whom were commanders), who have been involved in weapons smuggling, rebuilding infrastructure, training and recruitment, and even in the manufacture of precision rockets and drones.
• The IDF has also carried out approximately 1,200 raids in 21 villages in southern Lebanon, most of them Shiite, along length of the 120 km border in order to prevent Hezbollah from regrouping in them. The raids located and destroyed buildings or shafts designated for terrorist purposes that had not been located in Operation Northern Arrows. These raids were carried out in a range of 3-5 kilometres from the border.
• As in the past, the working assumption is that strikes like these are conducted in full coordination with US CENTCOM and by extension, knowledge of the White House.
• The operation is also part of the policy to increase the pressure on the Lebanese government to act more stridently to disarm the terror organisation themselves. Reports have suggested that the US is also growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of speed and progress made by the Lebanese Armed Forces. Hezbollah favours quiet in order to replenish its capabilities, and had hoped the US would restrain Israel.
• The provisions of the ceasefire agreement (with its first anniversary this week) allows Israel freedom of action against Hezbollah efforts to rearm and reconstitute its fighting capacity. Israel claims Tabatabai had violated it by engaging in terrorism.
• Hezbollah’s media is portraying 57 year old Ali Al-Tabatabai (also known as Sayed Abu Ali) as a veteran operative who joined Hezbollah at its inception. He took part in attacks on Israeli forces through the 1990s, and later went on to be commander of the elite Radwan Forces, who had been trained and primed to attack Israeli communities in northern Israel.  
• For decades he led Hezbollah fighters in attacks on US forces in Syria. The US designated him as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) in 2016 and offered a $5 million reward for information on him.
• He was only appointed Chief of Staff recently, replacing Muhammad Haidar who was dismissed by the leadership. Haidar was in the job a few months following the elimination of Fuad Shukr in July 2024, who was the Chief of Staff and close confidant of Nasrallah.
• Hezbollah’s choice of an experienced commander like Tabatabai was interpreted as a hostile move, specifically as he had been planning terrorist attacks and pushing for escalation of its actions against Israel.
• To an extend the elimination of Tabatabai almost fully completes the decapitation of the “old” Hezbollah  commanders and sends a message to any potential successors.
• In his remarks on Sunday night, Prime Minister Netanyahu emphasised that the removal of Hezbollah is necessary, “because only in this way can a better future be made possible for every citizen in Lebanon, and only in this way can good and secure neighbourly relations be established between Israel and Lebanon.”

Looking ahead: The current working assessment is that Hezbollah is unlikely to respond at this juncture.

• However, forces in the north and air defence systems are on a high state of alert. The IDF is prepared for a number of possibilities, such as rocket fire, drones, an infiltration attempt, or retaliation by the Houthis.
• The growing concern is that Hezbollah is rearming faster than it is being dismantled, and Israel is preparing for a focused operation, that could last several days in order to disrupt and damage Hezbollah’s capabilities.
• Israel will continue to make the case to the Lebanese government both publicly and privately that they can prevent this if they disarm Hezbollah.

What’s happened: A series of IDF airstrikes in Lebanon in the past week have eliminated fifteen Hezbollah operatives. 

• Most of the operations were conducted last Thursday and Saturday, and struck weapons storage and production facilities operated by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
• The IDF reported that it completed a series of strikes on Radwan Force’s infrastructure and weapon storage facilities. The IDF stressed that “the presence of terrorist infrastructure and the weapons storage facilities that were struck constituted a violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon, while endangering the civilians in the area.”
• On Saturday, the IDF struck in the area of Chebaa, eliminating two terrorists from the ‘Lebanese Resistance Brigades’ – which operates under the direction of Hezbollah – who were involved in smuggling weapons. Also on Saturday, the IDF killed a Hezbollah operative who was attempting to rehabilitate Hezbollah military infrastructure in the area of Baraashit. The IDF also struck Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure in the Beqaa area in southern Lebanon.
• On Monday, Lebanese media reported the presence of Israeli drones in  Tyre and in the Dahiya district of Beirut, Hezbollah’s principal stronghold in the Lebanese capital region.
• Overnight Monday, the IDF conducted a raid in border town of Houla to destroy several buildings that were being used by Hezbollah.
• Meanwhile, in Gaza, the standoff over the one hundred or so Hamas fighters holed up in tunnels on the Israeli side of the Yellow Line continues. Israel has refrained from any offensive military action against the Hamas fighters in the tunnels for fear that such action would collapse the ceasefire entirely — with Israel taking the blame for the resumption of the war.
• Israel has indicated that it is open to allowing the fighters safe passage across the Yellow Line, but only if they first surrender their weapons. Israel is also demanding that Hamas release the last four deceased hostages still remaining in Gaza before any advancement is made to next stages of the ceasefire.

Context: A year on from the ceasefire in Lebanon, Israel has began ramping up its operations against Hezbollah. Israel’s government has also been increasingly vocal about Hezbollah violations of its ceasefire commitments and increasingly impatient with the pace of the disarmament the Lebanese government claims to be carrying out.

• Israel’s Channel 12 News reports that Israel has given Lebanon an ultimatum that it will broaden its operation unless the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) rapidly escalate their disarmament efforts, as stipulated in the ceasefire agreement.
• The LAF, for its part, claims it is operating under the five-stage plan it announced two months ago to achieve a “state monopoly on weapons.” The plan calls first for a three-month operation focused on the area of Lebanon south of the Litani River (and closest to the border with Israel) to be followed up by a more comprehensive effort in the rest of the country.
• According to CENTCOM, the LAF has successfully removed nearly 10,000 rockets, almost 400 missiles, and over 205,000 unexploded ordnance fragments during the past year. A report in Reuters even claims that the LAF was running low on explosives because it had used so much of its stock to destroy Hezbollah weapons.
• Israeli authorities are unimpressed with the LAF’s efforts. According to Israeli sources, the LAF avoids entering villages that are Hezbollah strongholds and refrains entirely from entering private homes where Hezbollah weapons are stored. The public face of the disarmament efforts is also a cause for concern. The LAF routinely publishes pictures of weapons confiscation operations it has carried out in Palestinian refugee camps, but avoids releasing photos of the operations it claims to be conducting directly against Hezbollah.
• Israel also believes that despite less financial support from Iran, Hezbollah is still in better shape than the LAF in terms of arms and equipment and that despite the decrease in volume of arms smuggling via Syria, the group has still been able to continue to smuggle small quantities of arms.
• Israel is keen not to repeat the experience of previous ceasefires in Lebanon which came into effect with vague international promises regarding disarmament that were never fulfilled. Enforcing the disarmament commitments in Lebanon is also important for the precedent it sets moving forward in postwar Gaza.

Looking ahead: Lebanon is due to hold parliamentary elections in May 2026.

• Lebanese political observers believe that Hezbollah calculates that if it can hold on to its weapons until the elections, it will be able to achieve a more favourable outcome for itself, and then leverage that into sabotaging whatever remains of the disarmament campaign.
• Israeli analysts also believe that Hezbollah will seek to take advantage of the scheduled visit of Pope Leo XIV at the end of this month to step up smuggling operations, with the assumption that Israel will be reluctant to conduct a large air or ground campaign just before or during the pontiff’s visit.
• Yediot Ahronot reports that the US is planning on building a large military base inside Israel near the Gaza border for use by the international forces that will enforce the ceasefire. Cost estimates run around $500 million, and the base is expected to hold several thousand troops. It would mark an unprecedented international military presence in Israel. Multiple media reports in Israel have noted the gradual but sustained eclipsing of Israel’s role in the CMCC, the temporary command centre established in Kiryat Gat immediately following the ceasefire.

What’s happened: With the Gaza ceasefire holding and all the living hostages freed, the attention of the IDF has  shifted north to the Lebanese border.

• Over the last few days, Israel has conducted a number of operations in Lebanon to enforce the November 2024 ceasefire.
  • On Monday, the IDF carried out an air strike in the al-Biyad area of southern Lebanon that killed two Hezbollah operatives involved in restoring the terror group’s infrastructure in the area.
  • Last Thursday, an air strike destroyed a Hezbollah weapons depot in Nabatiyeh.
  • A wave of air strikes hit a Hezbollah training camp and a precision missile production site.
  • On Friday, two high profile Hezbollah commanders were killed in two separate drone strikes.
  • Senior Hezbollah military commanders were eliminated in two more air strikes on Saturday, including the commander of the elite Radwan Force’s Battalion B.
  • Another terror operative was eliminsated by the IDF on Sunday in Kabila in southern Lebanon in a motorcycle strike, a now familiar mode of operation in Lebanon.

Context: These operations follow an extensive division manoeuvre in the north that began on October 12 in order to counter the threat at the Israel’s northern border, where is Hezbollah systematically trying to attempting to re-establish their fighting presence within firing range of Israeli communities since the ceasefire came into effect a year ago.

• IDF operations in Lebanon since then have mostly focused either on destroying terrorist infrastructure – facilities for producing rockets – or eliminations of Hezbollah commanders. Among those were Ali Hussein Al-Mousawi, who, according to the IDF, was involved in smuggling rockets into Lebanon for use by Hezbollah.

• In parallel, Hezbollah continues to find itself isolated both politically and diplomatically. The Lebanese government, with US backing, continues to pursue a public line of wanting to decommission Hezbollah arms, though Israeli officials doubt very much this will be completed by the December 2025 deadline. And the loss of a state sponsor in Syria has cut off the direct land route from Lebanon to Iran.
• A report in Maariv detailing Hezbollah’s new weakness and isolation references unnamed Israeli officials as concerned that the Lebanese terrorist organisation may try to retake the initiative with an attack on Har Dov (also known as Shebaa Farms) or a rocket attack on northern Israel.
• On the one-year anniversary of his assumption of power, Hezbollah’s leader Naim Qassem gave an extensive interview to the terrorist group’s propaganda network al-Manar. He said, among other things, that the group has no intention of provoking a conflict with Israel right now. He claimed he could have sought refuge in Iran but preferred to stay in Lebanon. He reiterated his opposition to handing over Hezbollah weapons and also told his interviewer that he had no regrets about Hezbollah effectively joining Hamas’s war on Israel on October 8, 2023, one day after the Hamas attack on southern Israel.

Looking ahead: It has now been a week since Hamas last handed over any hostage. From Israel’s perspective, and especially with the passage of Trump’s deadline, this will constitute a severe violation of the ceasefire.

• Israel is considering range of responses including expanding the territory in the Strip under Israel’s control, retaking the Netzarim Corridor and restricting movement across it, and further delaying the reopening of the Rafah Crossing with Egypt.
• US envoy Mogran Ortagus arrived in Beirut for talks with Lebanese leaders to discuss the situation. She is due to meet with President Joseph Aoun, Speaker Nabih Berri and PM Nawaf Salam today. 
• On Wednesday, she will preside over the “Mechanism” meeting (the name given for the monitoring committee for the 2024 ceasefire).
• Tom Barrack, another Trump administration envoy, is due in Lebanon in early November. He was quoted in Arabic press accounts as warning last week that Lebanon was heading to another confrontation with Israel if it did not act quickly to disarm the group in full.

What’s happened: In two fateful meetings last week, the Lebanese government agreed on a series of decisions that if successfully implemented will result in the decommissioning of Hezbollah’s weapons and the full implementation of Lebanese sovereignty over the southern portion of the country bordering Israel for the first time in more than fifty years.

• The decisions effectively commit Lebanon to the four-stage initiative of US special envoy Thomas Barrack for implementing the ceasefire that ended the Israeli-Lebanese war in November 2024. These stages include:
  • In the first stage, the LFA will take over 15 positions in southern Lebanon near the border with Israel, and Israel will cease offensive military actions without withdrawing from the strong points it has held onto since the war in 2024. The five-state monitoring committee, a relic from a previous ceasefire in 1996, will renew its operations. This stage is due to be completed by the end of 2025.
  • The second stage will last 45 days, during which the Lebanese will actively disarm non-state militias. Israel is expected to withdraw three of its five strongpoints.
  • In the third stage, Hezbollah is to be withdrawn entirely from southern Lebanon, and Israel is to leave its last two strongpoints. Lebanese civilians will be allowed to return to village and sites that were abandoned during the war. This stage is to last 30 days.
  • The fourth stage too will last 30 days. All heavy weapons are to be dismantled, and IDF and LFA deployments on each side of the border are to be certified, with all IDF forces south of the border and only LFA forces north of it.
• Hezbollah rejected the government’s decision, branding it a “grave sin.” Ministers affiliated with Hezbollah and Amal, the other major Shiite militia, left the meeting in protest. Hezbollah deputy political council chairman Mahmoud Qamati accused the government of surrendering to foreign pressure, adding that “no one can disarm the resistance.”
• Factions opposed to Hezbollah hailed the decision. Lebanon’s Foreign Minister called it “historic” and claimed it was irreversible. Justice Minister Adel Nassar noted that weapons in the hands of non-state militias hadn’t protected Lebanon in war, but rather caused wars.
• US Envoy Thomas Barrak praised the decision to implement “one people, one army” as “making the historic, bold, and correct decision to begin fully implementing the ceasefire agreement, Resolution 1701, and the Taif Agreement.”
• Following the Lebanese government decision to accede to the Barrack initiative, the Lebanese Armed Forces have reportedly dismissed a key intelligence chief known for his close ties to Hezbollah. This is interpreted in Lebanon as yet another sign that the government is serious about eventually decommissioning Hezbollah entirely and asserting its own monopoly on armed force inside the country.
• Concurrently, Israel and the United States are working behind the scenes at the United Nations to stop the automatic renewal of UNIFIL’s mandate. With the Lebanese state now poised to take responsibility for southern Lebanon, it is not clear what purpose UNIFIL might fill, and other countries are reportedly warming to the Israeli and American initiative.
• France has indicated that would support a resolution that only renews UNIFIL’s mandate for one year, during which an orderly transfer of its facilities to the Lebanese Armed Forces could take place.

Context: The war between Israel and Hezbollah war continued as a low intensity conflict from October 8, 2023 when Hezbollah began launching rockets on Israel in solidarity with Hamas the day after the latter launched its deadly massacre on Israel.

• It escalated into a full-scale war in September 2024 with a series of devastating Israeli attacks beginning with pager and radio detonations crippled the Shiite militia, destroyed most of its missile arsenal, and killed almost its entire leadership.
• Since the ceasefire went into effect, Israel has heldonto five strongpoints in southern Lebanon and regularly enforced its provisions with offensive military action. Just last week, for example, the IDF struck a Hezbollah weapons storage facility and missile launcher.
• UNIFIL was established in 1978 as an interim peacekeeping force in Southern Lebanon. Its mandate was expanded in UN Security Council resolution 1701, which ended the Second Lebanon War in 2006, to include responsibility to prevent an armed Hezbollah presence south of Litani River, a mission it never endeavoured to carry out.
• Since the 1969 Cairo Agreement, Lebanon has not operated as a state in control of its own foreign and defence policy. The agreement placed authority over UNRWA facilities in the hands of the PLO rather than the Lebanese state, and allowed the PLO to pursue armed conflict with Israe lwithout needing to coordinate with the Lebanese state.
• Since that time, southern Lebanon has been a staging ground for a variety of armed factions, including the Palestinian,Christian, and Shiite militias, and the IDF, which patrolled a “security zone” in southern Lebanon from 1985 until its full withdrawal in 2000.
• In that entire time, the Lebanon-Israel border has been either a primary or secondary front of the Arab-Israeli conflict, replacing Egypt (which made peace with Israel in 1979), Jordan (which did so in 1994), and Syria (where a cold truce held for decades).

Looking ahead: As Israel prepares for a renewed offensive in Gaza, Egypt is expected to present a new proposal for a ceasefire that would stop the Israeli operation before it gets underway.

• The Egyptian proposal, which will be presented to a Hamas delegation due to arrive in Cairo later this week, will for the first time incorporate Israel’s demand for some kind of Hamas disarmament.
• Hamas weapons will be “frozen” according to reports of the proposal, though it is unclear if they will be retained by Hamas or, as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has suggested, they will be stored in warehouses under PA guard and supervision.
• The Egyptian proposal calls for a Palestinian police force to be deployed to Gaza following training by the US and Arab countries. Under the proposal, Hamas would release all the hostages it currently holds, and Israel would release thousands of Palestinian prisoners as well.
• Hamas would accept an Israeli redeployment in the Gaza Strip for a transitional period under Arab-American supervision. Neither Israel nor Hamas have given a response as of yet to the Egyptian proposal.

What’s happened: Eight months into the ceasefire with Lebanon, Israel launched a “focused” ground operation against a Hezbollah positions close to the border. 

• Based on intelligence, the IDF identified several areas of southern Lebanon where Hezbollah had re-established its military posts and launched special, targeted operations to dismantle them.
• According to the IDF, in one of the operations in the Jabal Blat ridge, which looks into the Israeli border community of Zarit, troops “located a compound containing weapons depots and firing positions belonging to Hezbollah” adding that reservist soldiers dismantled the terrorist infrastructure.
• In another operation, “reservist soldiers located weapons hidden in thicketed terrain in the Labbouneh area, including a multi-barrel launcher, a heavy machine gun, and dozens of explosive devices.” Labbouneh is less than 3km away from the Israeli town of Shlomi.     
• Troops also found an underground weapons storage facility which was also dismantled.
• The operation was deemed a necessary component in order to enforce the ceasefire. According to the ceasefire agreement, Israel can act to prevent Hezbollah re-entrenchment along the border. 

What’s happened: The Israeli Air Force (IAF) struck a Hezbollah storage facility containing precision guided missiles on Sunday.

• The warehouse was in the Dahiya neighbourhood, the key Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut.
• Prior to the strike, evacuation warnings were sent to the surrounding area, and the IDF also first dropped light munitions on the targeted building, the ‘knocks on the roof” signifying its imminent destruction. 
• The IDF stated that according to the provisions of the November 2024 ceasefire, the storage of missiles at the site “constitutes a blatant violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon, and poses a threat to the State of Israel and its civilians.”
• Following the strike a large fire broke out, caused by secondary explosions, demonstrating the building held highly explosive material.
• Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defence Minister Katz issued a joint statement noting, “Israel will not allow Hezbollah to strengthen and create any threat to it – anywhere in Lebanon. The Dahiya quarter in Beirut will not serve as a sanctuary for the Hezbollah terrorist organisation. The Government of Lebanon bears direct responsibility for preventing such threats. Israel will insist on its war objective of returning the residents of the north safely to their homes.”
• In response to the strike Lebanese President Aoun condemned the Israeli attack, “The US and France, as guarantors of the cessation of hostilities, must take their responsibility and oblige Israel to immediately cease its attacks. Israel’s continued destabilisation will exacerbate tensions and expose the region to real threats to its security and stability.”

Context: Israel continues to insist on freedom to act against perceived threats by Hezbollah in Lebanon. 

• According to analysis by the Alma research centre, in the six months since the ceasefire in the north, the IAF have carried out over 300 airstrikes.
  • 46 per cent occurred in the area south of the Litani River, where “Hezbollah continues to engage in significant activity, including reconstruction efforts, reorganisation, strengthening its capabilities, and renewing operation readiness against Israel” and where according to the ceasefire agreement, Hezbollah is not supposed to be present.
  • Approximately 53 per cent of the strikes were both north of Litani and in the Beqaa Valley area, to prevent weapons smuggling from Syria. 
  • Fewer than 1 per cent have targeted Beirut, making yesterday’s strike rare. 
• It is understood that prior to the Beirut strike Israel updated the US on its intentions.