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JERUSALEM: Overnight and into Thursday, Hezbollah, an ally of Iran, unleashed approximately 200 missiles and drones at Israel. This move, described by Israeli media as a coordinated offensive by Hezbollah and Iran, heightened tensions in the region.
The assault triggered a strong response from the Israeli Defense Forces, which launched retaliatory attacks targeting Hezbollah positions in the suburbs of Beirut.
The Israel Defense Forces declared, “The IDF is resolutely confronting the Hezbollah terrorist group following its deliberate aggression on behalf of the Iranian regime. We will not allow any threats to Israeli civilians and will respond forcefully to any danger posed to the State of Israel.”
Hezbollah has dubbed its recent campaign “Eaten Straw,” claiming it aimed at Israeli military locations around Tel Aviv and other areas.
In Shehabiya, southern Lebanon, Hezbollah members gathered to honor their fallen comrades, Ismail Baz and Mohamad Hussein Shohury, who died in an Israeli attack on their vehicles. Participants at the funeral raised the group’s distinctive yellow flags in a show of solidarity. (AFP via Getty Images)
Matthew Levitt, a leading scholar on Hezbollah from the Washington Institute, told Fox News about Eaten Straw. “The term comes from a Koran verse about destroying one’s enemies to the point that they are destroyed like grains of straw husks. In fact, it is going to lead to a massive Israel response.”
Just days prior to Wednesday’s attacks, Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun charged Hezbollah with pushing Lebanon into becoming “a second Gaza.”
An Israeli security expert from the Israel Alma Research and Education Center, Sarit Zehavi, told Fox News Digital, that “I think that Hezbollah is trying to scare Israel from launching further operations and I truly hope that we will not be afraid, and our government will do what it has to do.”
A fireball rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted an area in Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight March 10 to 11, 2026. (Fadel itani / AFP via Getty Images)
The Lebanese armed forces also failed to meet President Trump’s deadline to disarm Hezbollah terrorist organization in 2025.
The Lebanese government announced on Tuesday that it is interested in direct talks with Israel to end the current conflict with Hezbollah, yet one Israeli official claimed Beirut was not “affecting Hezbollah’s behavior in any way,” the Times of Israel cited a report from news site Y-Net reported.
Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon, speaking Wednesday, told members of the United Nations Security Council in New York that, “Lebanon now faces two options: either the Lebanese government takes real actions and restrains Hezbollah, or Israel uses its force to dismantle this terrorist organization. There is no other option.”
Edy Cohen, a Lebanese-born Israeli scholar of Hezbollah, dismissed the Lebanese government overtures to Israel as political theater. He referenced the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah that concluded with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, requiring the Lebanese state and army to disarm Hezbollah, as a failed effort.
A woman uses a mobile phone as she lies on a mattress in a railway station used as an underground bomb shelter in Tel Aviv on March 10, 2026. (Olympia De Maismont/AFP via Getty Images)
Cohen told Fox News Digital: “I don’t believe the Lebanese government. It is a game between them and Hezbollah. The Lebanese offered, for the first time since 1982, it would agree to dialogue with Israel. The first condition is a ceasefire. Hezbollah told the Lebanese government give the Israelis this offer. Hezbollah wants to stop this war. And that is how the government of Lebanon jokes about us.”
Speaking during a meeting of the United Nations Security Council meeting on Wednesday, Lebanese Ambassador Ahmad Arafa told the council, “The Lebanese people do not want war, and the Lebanese government is moving forward in implementing its decisions and will not backtrack,” The National reported.
According to the National report, Arafa said, “In our modern history, no Lebanese government has demonstrated this level of courage and determination to reclaim the state authority, to restrict weapons to legitimate state institutions and to extend the state’s control exclusively through its own forces over all Lebanese territory.”
An Israeli official told the Times of Israel that “The Lebanese government needs to get a grip on their country or Hezbollah parts of Beirut will soon look like Gaza.”