Israel Launches New Ground Operations in Lebanon Despite Truce

Israel’s military launched its first ground incursions in months into parts of southern Lebanon, saying on Wednesday that they were “targeted operations” to dismantle military infrastructure belonging to the militant group Hezbollah.

The military did not say when the operations took place. But the announcement came amid rising tensions over Hezbollah’s disarmament, a core requirement of an increasingly shaky cease-fire agreement signed in November, which ended the deadliest conflict between the two sides in decades.

Under the terms of the truce, Israel was expected to withdraw from southern Lebanon, which it had invaded during the war. But it has held onto five positions along the border, accusing Hezbollah of violating the agreement by maintaining an armed presence in the area.

Israel has also conducted near-daily strikes against what it says are Hezbollah targets, intensifying those attacks in recent weeks. Battered by the recent war and struggling to recuperate, Hezbollah has yet to respond militarily to any of the Israeli attacks since the November truce.

The Israeli military statement on Wednesday said it had located and destroyed weapons depots and firing positions, releasing footage showing soldiers conducting nighttime operations inside Lebanese territory.

Hezbollah has said that it withdrew its fighters from southern Lebanon, and Lebanon’s government has since dismantled hundreds of military sites and weapons caches in the area. However, the broader issue of Hezbollah’s full disarmament remains contentious and has raised fears of a renewed war with Israel.

Lebanon’s new government has yet to set a definitive timeline for full disarmament, and Hezbollah’s leader, Naim Qassem, said in a speech on Sunday that his group’s fighters would not lay down their weapons until Israel stopped its repeated attacks amid the cease-fire.

But those attacks have only intensified in recent weeks, and Israel carried out what it said was a targeted strike on Tuesday against a Hamas official near the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli — an area largely spared during the war — killing three people and wounding more than a dozen, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.

Roughly 250 people have been killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon since the cease-fire began, according to the health ministry, which does not distinguish between armed combatants and civilians.

The announcement of renewed Israeli ground operations came shortly after a U.S. envoy, Thomas J. Barrack Jr., arrived in Beirut on Monday, where he received Lebanon’s official response to a U.S. road map on Hezbollah’s disarmament.

Speaking to reporters after meeting with Lebanon’s president, Joseph Aoun, Mr. Barrack said that he was “satisfied” with the government’s response, without providing any details on what the seven-page document included.

In an interview with The New York Times last week, Mr. Barrack said that the cease-fire had been “a total failure” because Israel was still bombing Lebanon and because Hezbollah was violating the agreement’s terms.