BEIRUT — Israeli troops have captured a strategic mountain topped with a Crusader-built castle in southern Lebanon in the deepest incursion into the country in more than a quarter-century, the military said Sunday.
The taking of Beaufort castle, near the city of Nabatiyeh, followed days of airstrikes and intense fighting in nearby villages between Israeli troops and Hezbollah militants.
The capture marked a major Israeli advance in the latest Israel-Hezbollah war, which began on March 2, when Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel two days after the U.S. and Israel attacked its main backer, Iran.
Since then, Israel has launched a ground invasion, capturing dozens of Lebanese villages and towns close to the border. Hezbollah has launched thousands of missiles and drones at Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon and northern Israel.
The Israeli push came despite a nominal ceasefire that has been in place since April 17 and just days before Lebanon and Israeli hold their next round of direct talks in Washington starting Tuesday.
Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a key Hezbollah ally, said he can guarantee the militant group’s “full, comprehensive and immediate commitment to a ceasefire.”
“But who will force Israel to stop its aggression?” he said in a statement on his television station, NBN.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot requested an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council to discuss Israeli military operations in Lebanon, which he described as “unacceptable.”
“Nothing can justify the prolongation of Israeli military operations in Lebanon and its increasingly deep occupation of Lebanese territory,” Mr. Barrot said Sunday on French television BFM TV.
The Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, posted photographs on X showing Israeli troops walking outside the castle, and Defense Minister Israel Katz wrote on X that they raised an Israeli flag over the castle. Israeli troops previously captured the castle in 1982 and held it until they withdrew from Lebanon in 2000.
“Twenty six years after the withdrawal from the security zone in Lebanon, the Israeli flag has returned to fly on the peaks that overlook the Galilee towns,” Mr. Katz said Sunday at a memorial ceremony for Israeli soldiers killed in its previous occupation of southern Lebanon.
Mr. Katz said Israel intends to hold the castle as its troops work to destroy thousands more homes that he says were used by Hezbollah and other military infrastructure in southern Lebanon.
The Beaufort fortress, perched high atop Lebanon’s rolling green hills and overlooking the Litani River, has been a strategic military asset for centuries.
Built as a Crusader castle around the 12th century on top of previous fortifications, it has also been used by Saladin’s Jerusalem army, Mamluks, Ottomans, the French mandate and the Palestine Liberation Organization. The Crusaders named it Beaufort, which is Old French for “beautiful fortress.”
In recent days, Israel has expanded the scope of its operations in Lebanon, sending troops across the Litani River, which previously served as a de-facto boundary, and demanding that residents leave much of southern Lebanon.
“The occupation of Beaufort is a dramatic stage and a dramatic shift in the policies we are leading,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday, citing the military occupation of security zones in Syria, Lebanon and Gaza along Israel’s borders. He said Israel has killed 3,000 Hezbollah militants since the start of the war. Hezbollah has not disclosed its casualty numbers.
Israel has continued striking near Tyre, including near the Hiram Hospital. Lebanon’s Health Ministry said 13 health workers were wounded in the strike. Elsewhere, a strike in Deir al-Zahrani, near Nabatiyeh, killed eight people and wounded 16 others, according to Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency.
Hezbollah overnight claimed two attacks targeting Israeli troops and a Merkava tank in the southwestern town of Bayada near the border. In recent days, the group has said it has clashed with Israeli troops in several towns just north of the river near Nabatiyeh and the strategic castle. It also claimed attacks deeper into Israel near the northern city of Haifa, Nahariya, as well as border areas.
Hezbollah on Saturday fired salvos of rockets into northern Israel, including Kiryat Shmona, the largest city in the area.
Hezbollah’s use of hard-to-detect fiber optic drones has been deadly for the Israeli military, which is struggling to respond. There have been nearly 200 alerts for Israeli civilians across northern Israel warning of drones and missiles in the past 24 hours, according to Israel’s military.
The latest round of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has killed 3,350 people in Lebanon and displaced more than 1 million people.
According to Netanyahu’s office, at least 25 Israeli soldiers and a defense contractor have been killed in or near southern Lebanon, including one on Saturday. Two civilians have also been killed in northern Israel.
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