Strikes on Nabatieh continue into afternoon, Israeli channels report

Update, 6 September, 21:08 Israel time

Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon have continued into the afternoon, according to Israeli monitoring channels. The Abu Ali Express Telegram channel reported a series of Israeli fighter jet strikes on the city of Nabatieh, and said the strikes in the Nabatieh area had been wide in scope since the morning hours.

Ynet, in an alert citing reports in Lebanon, said the Israeli military had carried out a series of strikes in the south of the country. Neither report gives a number of strikes, a list of targets or any casualty figures.

The new material bears on a question left open in the earlier reporting, namely whether Israeli operations in the area were continuing after the morning strikes. It indicates they were, though neither report carries a fresh statement from the IDF spokesperson on the afternoon strikes, and neither names the buildings hit.

There is still no comment in any of the material from Hezbollah, from the Lebanese government or from the Lebanese army, and no independent confirmation of what was struck in Nabatieh during the afternoon. The reports do not say whether the later strikes were part of the operation the military announced earlier or a separate round of fire.

The story as first reported

The Israel Defense Forces said Hezbollah operatives launched two drones towards Israeli soldiers operating in what the military calls the Security Zone in southern Lebanon, and that troops opened fire and brought down one of them. In its statement, the IDF spokesperson said no Israeli injuries were reported and described the launch as a blatant violation by Hezbollah, adding that the military was striking in response.

Hours later the military said it had carried out those strikes. The IDF spokesperson said the strikes hit Hezbollah operatives and infrastructure in southern Lebanon, including weapons storage facilities and buildings the military said were used by the group to plan and direct attacks.

What the IDF says it targeted

Emanuel Fabian, the military correspondent of The Times of Israel, reported that the targets named by the military included weapons depots and other buildings, as well as a command centre the IDF said had been set up inside a former hospital. Fabian also reported that Lebanese media said the disused Ghandour Hospital in Nabatieh al-Fawqa had been demolished in a strike, a claim attributed to those outlets rather than to the Israeli military.

In its own posting on the strikes, the IDF said the command centre had been established inside a building previously used as a hospital, and said the operation was intended to remove threats posed by Hezbollah. The military did not release casualty figures for the strikes in the material available.

The Security Zone and the understandings

The phrase "Security Zone" is used by the Israeli military for the area in southern Lebanon where its forces have continued to operate. The IDF's English-language posts repeatedly describe Hezbollah's actions there as violations of what it calls "the understandings", the arrangements the military says govern the situation in the area. The reports here do not spell out the terms of those understandings, who guarantees them, or how violations are meant to be adjudicated.

Hezbollah is a Lebanese Shia political movement with an armed wing, designated a terrorist organisation by Israel and by a number of Western governments. The Israeli military refers to it throughout its statements as a terrorist organisation and to its members as terrorists. That is the military's framing, and it is reproduced here as attributed language rather than as neutral description.

Nabatieh and the geography

Nabatieh al-Fawqa lies in the Nabatieh region of southern Lebanon, one of the main population centres of the area north of the Israeli border. The Ali Taher Ridge, named by the IDF as the location of an attempted Hezbollah attack, is in the same part of southern Lebanon. Neither the military nor the correspondent's reports give the distance between the sites of the drone launch, the attempted attack and the buildings struck.

A discrepancy over timing

The accounts do not line up cleanly on when the Hezbollah action took place. The IDF spokesperson's statements, issued in the early hours and again later in the morning, both place the drone launch "earlier today (Sunday)". An earlier IDF post on X described the launch of two drones towards soldiers and said the military was striking in response. But the military's later post on the strikes says they were carried out in response to an attempted Hezbollah attack "yesterday" in the Ali Taher Ridge area. It is not clear from the material whether the drone launch and the Ali Taher Ridge incident are the same event described with different dating, or two separate incidents. We are not resolving that here.

There is also a difference of detail on the drones themselves. The initial statements refer to two drones launched towards soldiers, with one downed by ground fire. The headline on the later statement describes them as explosive drones. What happened to the second drone is not stated in any of the reports.

What the reports do not say

No Lebanese casualty figures appear in the material, and there is no comment from Hezbollah, from the Lebanese government or from the Lebanese army in any of the reports. The military has not said how many strikes were carried out or over how wide an area. The claim that the Ghandour Hospital building was demolished comes from Lebanese media as relayed by the Times of Israel correspondent, and is not confirmed by the IDF, which describes only a command centre in a building formerly used as a hospital. The reports do not say when the hospital ceased operating, nor do they provide independent evidence for the military's assertion that Hezbollah used it as a command centre.

Finally, none of the material describes what, if anything, follows: whether Israeli operations in the area are continuing, and whether any mediation channel has been activated.