Israel orders new strikes in southern Lebanon after seizing Beaufort Castle; Iran halts US talks

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered fresh airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs June 1, saying the strikes targeted Iran-backed Hezbollah positions, one day after Israeli ground forces captured the 900-year-old Beaufort Castle in southern Lebanon in what was reported as Israel’s deepest ground incursion into the country in 26 years.

Hours after the new strikes were announced, Iranian state media reported that Tehran would suspend indirect talks with the U.S. through mediators in protest of Israel’s latest military operations in Lebanon, threatening to derail ongoing diplomatic efforts between Washington and Tehran.

Netanyahu said he and Defense Minister Israel Katz instructed the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to strike “terrorist targets” in Beirut’s Dahiyeh district in response to what he described as Hezbollah’s “repeated and ongoing violations” of a U.S.-brokered ceasefire, according to an unofficial translation of a Hebrew-language post on X.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun condemned the strikes in a June 1 statement, saying Lebanon is facing a “vicious and reprehensible Israeli aggression” and that his government is working to end “the suffering of the Lebanese people, and people in the south in particular,” according to The Times of Israel. 

Aoun said in a separate statement that his country is committed to negotiating, which he described as “safer than war, as we have seen — and continue to see — the ravages of war and its consequences.”

Israeli forces seize Crusader-era fortress

Israeli forces’ capture of Beaufort Castle, a fortress Crusaders built that overlooks Lebanon’s Litani River Valley and parts of northern Israel, marks Israel’s deepest ground incursion into Lebanon since it controlled the castle from 1982 to 2000, according to the New York Post. Israel used the fortress, which lies roughly 9 miles north of the border, as a base during those years, and the site sustained “significant damage,” according to UNESCO.

Netanyahu described the capture as a “decisive shift” in Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah, saying Israeli forces had raised his country’s flag over the castle and would maintain a presence there as part of a new security zone. 

“We are initiating, we are acting on all fronts — in Syria, in Gaza, in Lebanon,” Netanyahu said in a June 1 Hebrew video statement, according to an unofficial translation. “We have established security zones beyond our borders in order to protect our communities.”

As Zeale News previously reported, Israeli officials said in March that their troops would maintain a “buffer zone” by occupying southern Lebanon up to the Litani River — an area that amounts to nearly a tenth of Lebanon — as part of their campaign against Hezbollah. Katz said at the time that Israel would demolish Lebanese homes and buildings near the border that he described as “terrorist outposts.”

The escalation follows several days of intensified fighting in southern Lebanon. Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported Israeli air raids and “intense bombardment” near Beaufort Castle on May 30, while Hezbollah claimed it destroyed an Israeli tank near the site.

According to the French-language Lebanese outlet L’Orient Today, the Arnoun Municipality, which oversees a Lebanese village adjacent to Beaufort Castle, denounced Israeli bombing in the area and urged international organizations to protect the historic site.

UNESCO has described the Beaufort Castle as “one of the best-preserved examples of medieval castles in the Near East” and granted it provisional enhanced protection as a cultural property in late 2024 after Israel’s previous invasion of Lebanon.

The fighting has continued despite a U.S.-brokered ceasefire that took effect in mid-April. The truce has been widely described as fragile, with both sides accusing the other of continued violations after fighting broke out between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters on March 2, shortly after the start of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. 

According to May 30 data from Lebanese Ministry of Public Health, the fighting has so far killed 3,371 people in Lebanon and wounded 10,129. More than one million people in Lebanon have been displaced from their homes. As Zeale News has reported, Christian villages and historic sites in southern Lebanon have been caught in the crossfire of the violence. Israel said 26 of its soldiers and two civilians have also been killed, according to AP News.

>> Report: Israeli forces demolish historic Christian monastery and school in southern Lebanon << 

Talks involving Lebanon, Israel, Iran, and the U.S. 

The escalation also comes ahead of a new round of direct talks between Israeli and Lebanese officials in Washington set to begin June 2. A U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told AP News late May 31 that Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with Aoun and Netanyahu to propose a path for continued negotiations. 

The official said that, under the proposal, Hezbollah would halt attacks on Israel, while Israel would refrain from escalating military operations in Beirut, according to AP News. The official added that Aoun was open to the idea, but Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said Israel must first stop all military action.

Meanwhile, Iranian state media reported June 1 that Tehran would suspend all indirect talks with the U.S. because of Israel’s latest military actions in Lebanon. 

“In light of the ongoing crimes of the Zionist regime in Lebanon and given that Lebanon was part of the ceasefire preconditions, and now this ceasefire has been violated on all fronts, including Lebanon, the Iranian negotiating team is suspending ‘discussions and exchanges of texts through intermediaries,'” the government-linked Tasnim News Agency wrote on X June 1.

Iranian officials demanded an immediate end to Israeli operations in Lebanon and Gaza, along with a full withdrawal from southern Lebanon, as a precondition for resuming dialogue.

>> Trump says Iran talks progressing slowly, warns military option remains if no deal is reached <<