Israel says Hezbollah launched drone attack on strategic ridge amid ceasefire

On July 29, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Hezbollah launched an “explosive drone” overnight toward an IDF engineering vehicle in the Ali Taher Ridge area of southern Lebanon. Ynet reported that the vehicle was hit, but no casualties were reported. The IDF described the incident as a “blatant violation” of the ceasefire in Lebanon that went into effect on June 19. The IDF added that its forces would continue operating in the area to prevent Hezbollah personnel from preparing attacks against Israeli troops. According to Israeli media, the targeted vehicle was operating inside the Israeli-occupied portion of southern Lebanon, which Israel calls its security or buffer zone. An Israeli source familiar with the deliberations told The Jerusalem Post that Israel would respond and that discussions were underway over the nature of that response. Ynet reported that the IDF was awaiting a decision from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and had identified Hezbollah’s subterranean infrastructure beneath Ali Taher as a possible target. Such an operation, the outlet noted, could rapidly restart fighting in Lebanon. As of the time of this writing, Hezbollah has neither claimed the attack nor issued a formal denial. Additionally, the IDF’s public statement included no footage of the attack, images of the drone or its wreckage, flight-path information, evidence identifying its launch point, or other material substantiating its attribution. “When it is us carrying out an operation, we claim it proudly,” an unnamed Hezbollah source told L’Orient-Le Jour, but he stopped short of formally denying responsibility. The newspaper also relayed Lebanese-media reports that cited a local source who claimed the drone was intended to halt Israeli earthmoving activity around the ridge. Those reports neither identified the responsible party nor provided supporting evidence. A July 30 analytical column by An-Nahar’s Ibrahim Bayram treated Hezbollah as responsible for the strike while noting that the group had not claimed it. Bayram described the attack as a symbolic effort by Hezbollah to exploit the regional escalation and signal that the group retains the initiative. However, he cited no source for those assertions. Ali Al Taher is a commanding ridge near the city of Nabatieh in southern Lebanon, located north of the Litani River and several kilometers from Beaufort Castle. At roughly 600 meters above sea level, it overlooks Nabatieh, nearby valleys, and the surrounding terrain toward Iqlim al Tuffah and the Rihan Heights. On June 26, Lt. Col. Ella Waweya, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesperson, said Ali Al Taher was under “full [IDF] control.” She separately told Sky News Arabia that the Israeli military had completely surrounded the hill but had not entered the underground complex that the IDF alleges Hezbollah constructed beneath it. Israeli reports say the June 19 ceasefire order froze IDF operations at Ali al Taher, with Israeli troops positioned on the ridge but not yet inside Hezbollah’s fortified underground facility. Hezbollah’s Islamic Resistance Operations Room denied Israel’s claim, saying the hill was free of Israeli troops and remained under the control of its fighters. L’Orient Today reported on June 26 that Israeli forces were positioned around the mountain but that its capture had not been independently confirmed. The IDF describes the tunnel system beneath Ali Taher as a ‘nerve center’ of Hezbollah’s Badr regional division. Hezbollah’s Badr Unit—often rendered in English Israeli reporting as the “Badr regional division”—is one of the group’s principal territorial military formations in southern Lebanon. Israeli assessments place its area of responsibility as north of the Litani River, encompassing Nabatieh and extending toward Sidon. It oversees Hezbollah’s territorial command and rocket operations in that sector, and Israel’s Channel 11 reported in November 2024 that Badr had become the main unit responsible for rocket launches after Israel killed commanders in other Hezbollah formations. The IDF says that the entire Ali al Taher–Beaufort sector contains strategic underground infrastructure and weapons, and Israeli military reporters, citing the IDF, have said that dozens of Hezbollah operatives remain beneath Ali Al Taher. On July 2, the IDF said it killed an operative who emerged from a tunnel shaft and was preventing others from leaving the underground infrastructure or moving around the ridge. Israel has not publicly released material establishing the Ali al Taher site’s full dimensions, contents, or the number of personnel inside. Reuters reported on July 29 that Lebanese security sources suspected Hezbollah of operating a command center and weapons storage facilities on the ridge. Hassan Jouni, a retired Lebanese general and analyst, told Reuters that further Israeli withdrawals from nearby positions were unlikely until the Ali al Taher issue was resolved—either through an Israeli capture of the ridge or Lebanese troops clearing Hezbollah’s weapons stores. The area has already proved costly for the IDF. Five Israeli soldiers were killed in two attacks around Ali al Taher and nearby Kfar Tebnit on June 19–20. Four were killed when their tank was hit; an IDF probe reported by Ynet assessed that the munition was either an antitank missile or an explosive drone. In the second attack, one soldier was killed, and 13 were wounded when rockets, mortar fire, and an explosive drone struck an Israeli position near Kfar Tebnit. Ynet reported that the July 29 incident appeared to be Hezbollah’s first use of an explosive drone against an Israeli target since the ceasefire. The US-mediated June 26 Framework Agreement between Israel and Lebanon links Israel’s progressive withdrawal from southern Lebanon to the verified disarmament of Hezbollah. On July 20, the US State Department announced pilot zone operations in Froun, Srifa, and Zawtar Al Gharbiyeh as the first phase of the US-brokered framework. Reuters reported that Israeli troops withdrew from Zawtar and that the Lebanese Armed Forces deployed there on July 21. Reuters subsequently reported that implementation had proceeded slowly; the framework establishes no timetable, and no third-party verifier or verification mechanism has been settled. The drone attack—if Hezbollah was indeed responsible—suggests that the group remains capable of conducting armed operations near LAF operations and where Israel is demanding that the group’s military infrastructure be dismantled before further withdrawals. IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir visited southern Lebanon on July 29. In the IDF’s account of the visit, he did not mention the drone incident. Zamir said the IDF would advance farther into Lebanon if necessary and would not withdraw from territory it held until Israel’s long-term security is guaranteed. Separately, Channel 12 reported that Israel has ruled out further withdrawals from territory it holds on its side of the “yellow line”— the forward edge of Israel’s “security zone” in southern Lebanon—until Hezbollah is disarmed. Shortly after midnight on July 31, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said that the IDF had demolished Hezbollah tunnel infrastructure in the Beaufort area using approximately 700 tons of explosives. The officials linked the timing of the demolition to what they called Hezbollah’s preceding violation of the ceasefire, an apparent reference to the explosive-drone attack at Ali al Taher. The IDF separately said that the 36th Division destroyed several principal tunnel routes “near the Beaufort ridge,” comprising a significant portion of a multilevel network that served as a central headquarters for Hezbollah’s Badr Unit and was built over two decades with Iranian funding and planning. The Israeli military followed up by saying its forces “continue to operate in the area of Ali Al Taher Ridge,” remained defensively and offensively ready to respond to “any harm” or “threat” to Israeli forces in the area while maintaining their “commitment to the ceasefire in Lebanon.” David Daoud is Senior Fellow at at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies where he focuses on Israel, Hezbollah, and Lebanon affairs.