Israeli army carries out demolitions in Bint Jbeil, other towns

Israeli forces on Saturday carried out demolitions in the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil, the scene of intense fighting with Hezbollah prior to the recently agreed 10-day truce, Lebanese state media reported.

"The Israeli enemy is repeating its house detonating operations in the town of Bint Jbeil," Lebanon's state-run National News Agency (NNA) said, also reporting demolitions in other border towns where Israeli troops are present.

Bint Jbeil, located around five kilometers north of the Israeli border, had been the scene of heavy fighting between Israeli forces and Hezbollah for days before the truce went into force at midnight on Thursday.

The town has long been both a symbolic and strategic flashpoint in confrontations between Israel and Hezbollah.

It was the site of some of the fiercest fighting during the 2006 war, when Hezbollah's resistance there became central to the group's narrative of defiance.

And it was from the stadium in Bint Jbeil in 2000 that the group's former chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah delivered his "Liberation" speech following Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon after 22 years of occupation.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has previously said house demolitions would be carried out "in order to remove once and for all the border-adjacent threats" as part of efforts to establish a security zone in south Lebanon.

His Lebanese counterpart Michel Menassa decried the plans as evidence of an intention to "forcibly displace hundreds of thousands of citizens, and systematically destroy villages."

After a November 2024 ceasefire sought to end the last conflict between Israel and Hezbollah -- during which Nasrallah and other top leaders were killed -- Israeli troops also carried out a series of demolitions in certain towns.