Hezbollah terrorists launched two mortar shells across the border with Israel in the Mount Dov area on Monday afternoon, in violation of the Nov. 26 ceasefire agreement, the Israel Defense Forces said.
“A short time ago, the Hezbollah terrorist organization carried out two launches toward the Mount Dov area [in the Golan Heights], which fell in open areas, there were no casualties,” the IDF said in a statement.
The Iranian-backed terrorist organization took responsibility for the attack, claiming it fired at an Israeli military outpost “as a warning.”
Earlier on Monday, the IDF said that it operated in the morning and on Sunday in response to threats posed to the Jewish state by Hezbollah in violation of the truce, which went into effect on the morning of Nov. 27.
The Lebanese violations included several military vehicles operating in the area of a Hezbollah missile manufacturing site in the Beqaa Valley that were struck and terrorist infrastructure sites used to smuggle weapons next to the Syria-Lebanon border in the Hermel area.
“These posed a threat to the State of Israel and were a violation of the ceasefire understandings,” the military statement noted, adding that “the IDF is operating against any threat against the State of Israel.”
IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari told Sky News Arabia on Monday that Jerusalem remains committed to the ceasefire terms.
“UNIFIL forces and the Lebanese government must fulfill their roles—this is also in their interest. We need this period to ensure there are no terror bases there,” he said, emphasizing that the Lebanese people and government must ensure that “Beirut and Southern Lebanon are free of weapons—not in homes, not in yards and not in children’s rooms.”
Under the terms of the truce, Israeli forces are to gradually withdraw from Lebanon over a period of 60 days, while Lebanon’s official army enters those areas vacated by the IDF. Hezbollah already violated the terms of the ceasefire on the first day, according to the Israeli military.
The governments of France and the United States, which are members of the monitoring mechanism overseeing the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire agreement, have also complained of violations by Jerusalem, primarily the alleged use of IDF surveillance drones over the skies of Beirut.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said he told his French counterpart on Monday that “Israel is not violating the ceasefire understandings but is instead enforcing them in response to Hezbollah’s violations.”
In a statement, the diplomat reiterated Jerusalem’s commitment to implementing the agreement and made it clear that Israel “will not return to the reality of October 6, 2023,” the day before the Hamas-led massacre in the northwestern Negev which triggered the war in Gaza.
(JNS)