The Israeli military announced Friday that it struck 10 Hezbollah sites in southern Lebanon in retaliation for an earlier attack on troops, further weakening an already fragile ceasefire and potentially threatening the success of peace negotiations between the U.S. and Iran.
The Israeli air force said it hit Hezbollah infrastructure sites in the southern Lebanon towns of Bint Jbeil, Beit Yahoun, Kounine and Baraashit.
The Israeli military said the Iran-backed group used the sites to target troops in northern Israel.
Separately, Israeli troops also targeted a truck that the Israel Defense Forces said was used to transport weapons.
It’s unclear how many people were killed in the airstrikes.
The bombing was in response to an apparent Hezbollah strike on Israeli troops stationed in southern Lebanon on Thursday, wounding one reservist soldier. The Israeli military called the attack a clear violation of the existing ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon.
Israel and Lebanon signed a U.S.-brokered ceasefire last week after months of negotiations. However, the Lebanese government does not control Hezbollah, and the group’s leadership has repeatedly said it won’t abide by a ceasefire it was not involved in negotiating.
The attacks could prove yet another setback for U.S.-Iran peace negotiations, which are underway following the two nations’ signing of the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding last month.
The first provision of the memorandum calls for a ceasefire on all fronts of the war, including in Lebanon. But Israel has refused to pull out of the “security zone” its troops occupy in southern Lebanon, and inconsistent retaliatory attacks from the IDF and Hezbollah have made a permanent ceasefire untenable.
Iran, which provides material and political support for Hezbollah, has threatened to stop negotiating with the U.S. and respond proportionally if it can’t halt Israel’s attacks in Lebanon.
“We will firmly demand the full implementation of the understandings that have been reached,” Iran’s parliament speaker and lead negotiator in diplomatic talks with the U.S., Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said Friday, according to state media reports. “If the United States and the Zionist regime do not honor their commitments, the Islamic Republic of Iran will resume its proportionate measures.”