16 April 2025

Beirut, Lebanon — On 28 March, an evacuation warning from the Israeli army sent Beirut’s southern suburbs into panic. Residents rushed to leave the densely populated neighbourhood by car or on foot, jamming the small roads. 

Hours later, two large explosions rang throughout the Lebanese capital, provoking painful memories of Israel’s months-long bombing campaign, when its jets pounded the city.

While Israel has continued to strike south Lebanon, the attack on Beirut was the first since a fragile ceasefire deal took hold on 27 November. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was a response to the barrage of rockets fired from Lebanon at the Israeli northern border town of Kiryat Shmona earlier that day, the second such incident in less than a week. Hezbollah denied responsibility for the rocket fire, and no other group has claimed responsibility. 

“We will not allow firing on our communities, not even a trickle,” the Israeli premier stated. 

Then, before the sun rose on 1 April, Israel hit southern Beirut again, wiping out two floors of an apartment building without warning and killing four people, including a Hezbollah official and three others. 

“These are the new rules of the game. The Israeli response is no longer limited to south Lebanon,” Randa Slim, a fellow with Johns Hopkins Foreign Policy Institute, told The New Arab. 

“Anytime there is an attack on Israel, they’re going to respond forcefully inside Lebanon, and inside Beirut, by targeting key people in Hezbollah and Hamas,” she said.

“Israel’s message in all of its actions – but especially in Beirut – is that it has decided it wants a new security reality in the north,” Mairav Zonszein, the senior Israel analyst for the International Crisis Group (ICG), told TNA.

“It’s going to use a lot of force to make it clear that it’s not going to tolerate any kind of fire,” she said. “And that’s how it’s holding the ceasefire – as far as it sees it.”