Israeli Drone Infiltration Over Nabatieh Heightens Tensions

An Israeli drone hovering over southern Lebanese city Nabatieh, a Hezbollah stronghold, sparks concerns amid escalating US‑Israeli‑Iranian conflict. The city's mayor, backed by Hezbollah, remarks on the noise as a reminder of the war's brutality, while UN and IDF communications underscore the volatility after the February joint strike on Iran's Supreme Leader which triggered renewed hostilities and a large‑scale Israeli ground invasion of southern Lebanon. They menace the sky above the southern Lebanese city of Nabatieh, 11 kilometres from the Israeli border, a sound more common than birdsong. Standing with mayor Abbas Fakherdine in the ruins of the city's Ottoman-era market, destroyed during the last three years of war, the one buzzing above us is the loudest I've heard. The mayor was elected with the backing of Hezbollah, the Iranian-funded Lebanese militant group that drones like these are tasked with hunting. While he finds it funny, it is also disconcerting – this city is often called a Hezbollah stronghold and Fakherdine's predecessor was killed by an Israeli drone strike two years ago. Authorities say about 400 people died during the previous one, and nearly the same number again during the current one. As the Israeli drone whines above, another unsettling noise punctures the air — the ding of an incoming text message. It is from a UN representative, who we let know we would be filming in Nabatieh, relaying a message from the Israeli Defense Forces :This war in Lebanon has played out in the shadow of a larger conflict: Israel and the US's war with Iran, launched in February this year. After a joint operation killed Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — Hezbollah's patron — the Lebanese militant group fired rockets into northern Israel. Those strikes shattered the ceasefire that had dampened 14 months of intense fighting between Hezbollah and Israel, triggered after Hamas — another element of the Iran-led axis of resistance — went on a bloody rampage inside Israel in October 2023. A poster of the late Iranian ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed by a joint US-Israeli airstrike in February, pictured in the Hezbollah stronghold of Dahieh. But Hezbollah's attack this year prompted an even more ferocious response from Israel, including a large-scale ground invasion of southern Lebanon. The IDF now occupies about 6 per cent of Lebanese territory for what Israel calls a "security zone" to protect its northern communities from Hezbollah attacks — an area three times larger than what it occupies in Gaza. When Israel's Defense Minister, Israel Katz, visited troops inside occupied Lebanese territory last month, he said he had instructed forces to "take all necessary steps to prepare for a long-term presence in the area" and declared the military was "destroying all the houses in the area". "Imagine a person's only house, which they worked so hard to build, and in an instant, there's nothing left of it," says Layal Akil, a mother of two young boys. Her home in the border village of Jebbine was destroyed in 2024 and is now unreachable due to the occupation. Layal Akil and her two boys have not been unable to return to their home in the border town of Jebbine since March. She is sheltering in a school in the southern coastal city of Tyre, but is about to get kicked out when the school year starts, and has no idea where she will go next. The IDF says Hezbollah "operates from within population centres and systematically makes military use of civilian structures in southern Lebanon, including converting residential homes into weapons storage facilities, headquarters, launch positions, and observation posts used to conduct attacks against IDF troops". But increasingly, human rights groups and the Lebanese government are warning Israel's actions in southern Lebanon violate international law. Human Rights Watch's Lebanon researcher, Ramzi Kaiss, has visited border villages during the previous ceasefire, describing some as "ghost towns where quite literally not a single building is still left standing". "You could see quite clearly that return to these villages will take years, simply because the basic necessities for life have been destroyed," he says. "What we found since the Israeli military's first invasion into southern Lebanon on October 2024, until to date, a pattern where Israel goes into various villages and towns, there's a period of ground fighting, occupies the towns, takes control of them. "Once it's in control of the village, we see widespread destruction involving either bulldozers or heavy machinery, or also controlled demolition, and we've seen that destruction … stretch until after a ceasefire has gone into effect when there is no military need to be destroying this infrastructure, people's homes. "An attack can be lawful when it's directed at a military object or target, but once you're destroying civilian homes, infrastructure, water infrastructure so extensively and so deliberately, it would amount to wanton destruction, which is a war crime. " In a statement, the IDF said it "operates in accordance with international law against military targets belonging to the Hezbollah and takes all feasible precautions under the circumstances to mitigate harm to civilians and civilian infrastructure to the greatest extent possible". More than 4,000 Lebanese have been killed in the war this year, both fighters and civilians — the Lebanese Health Ministry does not distinguish between the two. That number does include more than 600 women and children, at least nine journalists and more than 130 health workers. This year, two Israeli civilians have died and 36 IDF soldiers have been killed in combat in Lebanon. From his headquarters high on a hill overlooking Nabatieh, chief paramedic Mohamed Suleiman has a good view of the fighting. He points towards the historic Beaufort Castle — a craggy, 900-year-old Crusader fortress on a distant hilltop — that Israeli troops captured in May, the IDF's deepest incursion into Lebanon in 26 years. "This is the red zone where we hear explosions and shelling everyday, so there is no ceasefire," Mohamed says. For months, Israel has been pounding the ridge with airstrikes and artillery fire to clear it of Hezbollah fighters. Mohamed does not flinch. He has pulled out his prayer mat and is prostrate on the ground. Volunteer paramedic Ali Moullem sits in an ambulance damaged in a strike that killed his colleague, Mahdi Abou Zaid, in April. It is "a neutral association," he says. "We have no relationship with any specific political organisation in this country. " When Israel issued an evacuation order for a huge swathe of southern Lebanon, most residents left, but he and his team stayed. His 16-year-old son Joud, who had dreamed of becoming a paramedic just like his father, had insisted he stay too and help out. One day in March, Joud and his friend Ali had left on a motorbike to deliver food to the volunteer paramedics when they were hit by an Israeli airstrike. Despite repeated requests, it has not provided Foreign Correspondent with any evidence to back that up. "Everything shows they are civilian youth, not militants," says Mohamed. "From their clothing to the helmet, to the vest, to the phone, to the motorcycle they were riding. " Three weeks later, one of Mohamed's volunteer paramedics, 30-year-old Mahdi Abou Zeid, was also killed attending a call-out, one of four paramedics from different services killed that day. In a statement, the IDF said it attempted only one strike on suspects trying to establish a missile launch position, who then fled to a nearby ambulance. It insists it did not strike the ambulance and said it takes all feasible precautions to mitigate harm to medical personnel, but has failed to explain why four paramedics died that day. "We are very worried that the war will start again, because in war there are very big losses. We can't lose anyone anymore, we can't bear to lose anyone," he says, fighting back tears. "I consider that the minor war," he said at the G7 in June, when questions were being asked about whether Israel's attacks on Lebanon could blow up his fragile peace deal with Hezbollah's larger, more powerful ally, Iran. Against that backdrop, in June, the US brokered a framework agreement between Israel and the state of Lebanon to end the war that hinges on an almost impossible task — disarming Hezbollah. Hezbollah is designated a terrorist organisation by many western countries, including Australia, and its leaders have called for the elimination of Israel. But in Lebanon, it is more than an armed militant group — it is a legitimate political party, providing schools, hospitals and financial services. Hezbollah pays for rebuilding after wars and some of Lebanon's approximately 1.7 million Shia Muslims see them as the only defenders against Israel. Successive Lebanese governments had allowed Hezbollah to exist as a legitimate armed resistance, and over time, with funding from Iran, it became more powerful and well-resourced than the national army. But when Hezbollah kicked off fighting again with Israel in March, in an unprecedented move, the Lebanese government banned Hezbollah's militant and security activities. The agreement with Israel is an extension of that position, but the failure to secure a timetable for an IDF withdrawal as part of the deal was met with outrage among some in Lebanon. Hezbollah, in turn, has refused to lay down its weapons while Israeli forces remain in the country indefinitely. Lebanon's former spy chief, Abbas Ibrahim, renowned for mediating conflicts between hostile parties , thinks his government gave up too much. "I'm not with this framework because there is no obligation on the Israeli side," he says, adding that it places demands on Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah. He says even the idea of disarming Hezbollah is dangerous and is causing tensions within Lebanon between the group and its Shia support base, and other Lebanese. "These tensions may transition to street skirmishes. I am not saying a civil war but clashes on the street, and tension among various segments of the Lebanese people. " For Hezbollah spokesperson Ibrahim Moussawi, one of the group's 13 members of parliament, the idea of disarming before the IDF withdraw is a non-starter. "We are a party, we are an entity, and in Lebanon we are Lebanese party under the Lebanese flag, defending our Lebanese people, liberating our Lebanese occupied territories from the Israeli enemy," he says. "It's not a yes or no question. What guarantees do we have that the Israelis won't come again? " For supporters of the deal, like former prime minister Fouad Siniora, getting weapons out of Hezbollah's hands is the only option. "There is no way for Lebanon to get Israel out as long as the Lebanese Army is not in charge of everything, everything in Lebanon," he says. "You cannot have two captains in one ship. The Hezbollah cannot continue to be an armed force in Lebanon. " The wish from the Lebanese people is simple — end the war, get Israel out. What they cannot agree on is how to get there. For now, the Lebanese government is stuck dealing with a war it did not start, and one that it seemingly does not have the power to end but desperately wants to. As one of the volunteer paramedics said prophetically, after a morning of watching airstrikes on the ridge: "Hopefully next time you come to see how we live, not how we die. "