Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz on Monday morning ordered the IDF to return to heavy attacks on Hezbollah's Dahiyeh stronghold in Beirut.
They said that the order was given after increased Hezbollah rocket attacks on Israeli civilians throughout the North.
Their statement came after top US officials green-lit re-striking Beirut, as the Iran nuclear talks have also dragged longer than US President Donald Trump had wanted, with Washington having held Israel back in Lebanon as a concession to the Islamic Republic, based on the assumption that a deal would have occurred in prior weeks.
Netanyahu said that he will not allow a situation where Israeli civilians in the North come under fire, but where top Hezbollah officials in Dahiyeh in Beirut retain their immunity from being struck.
Meanwhile, the IDF announced on Sunday morning that its ground troops had taken over the Beaufort Ridge outpost and Wadi al-Saluki areas beyond the Litani River, but despite those moves, Hezbollah managed to shower the North with drones and reportedly over 50 rockets throughout the day.
On May 26, in response to ongoing Hezbollah drone attacks, which have harmed an increasing number of IDF soldiers, Israel confirmed that the military had invaded deeper into Lebanon beyond the April 17 ceasefire yellow line and the Litani.
Ahead of the troops' advance, the air force, artillery, and tanks conducted extensive support strikes against Hezbollah infrastructure in the area to reduce resistance.
Nabatiya would be the farthest that IDF ground forces have advanced
Further, the IDF added that it was operating near Nabatiya, another significant Hezbollah stronghold in southern Lebanon, and is prepared to expand its operations there as well
Nabatieh would be the farthest that IDF ground forces have advanced, around 20 kilometers from the Israeli border, whereas as of the April 17 ceasefire, the IDF was set at around 10 kilometers from the border.
Nahariya, Acre, Tel Dan, Beit Hillel, Kiryat Shmona, Safed, Maalot, and a wide range of other Galilee areas were either struck or had repeated sirens from Hezbollah rockets and drones fired toward them on Sunday.
Many of those same villages, as well as Karmiel, were also under attack by Hezbollah on Saturday.
Multiple additional IDF soldiers have been killed in recent days by the ongoing drone attacks, sending the total IDF casualties from Hezbollah drones post-ceasefire into double digits and closing in on 20.
There were no reports of civilian casualties for much of Sunday, with an increasing number of civilians self-evacuating those areas (especially with schools suspending classes recently), but both Tel Dan and Beit Hillel had reports of firefighters battling large fires, and there were reports in the late evening of four injured at Beit Hillel.
Although for about a week after the April 17 ceasefire, Israel and Hezbollah both significantly reduced hostilities, around a week later, both sides started gradually escalating.
IDF and Hezbollah both wish to escalate
The IDF wanted to escalate to put more pressure on Hezbollah to agree to disarm. Hezbollah wanted to escalate because it viewed continued IDF operations against its forces in parts of southern Lebanon, which the IDF had taken control of, as a violation of the ceasefire.
Initially, Hezbollah struck back on a limited basis, mostly against IDF soldiers in southern Lebanon.
However, as Hezbollah FPV drones started to injure more IDF soldiers, this both encouraged Hezbollah to launch more such drones and pressed the IDF to launch more aggressive attacks on Hezbollah to try to get the Lebanese terror group to back down from the drone attacks.
When neither side backed down, the IDF started to invade Lebanon beyond the Litani, including large-scale air strikes in Tire and the Bekaa Valley, and even one time in Beirut, and Hezbollah started to fire more rockets and drones at Israeli civilian villages.
Trying to keep the focus on the IDF's tactical advances against Hezbollah, Netanyahu said on Sunday, "Today, we returned to Beaufort differently. We returned united, determined, and stronger than ever. I spoke with the fighters on the northern border on Friday. They told me: 'Tell the people of Israel what we are doing here. Prime Minister, the public doesn't know what achievements we have made.'
Netanyahu said that the IDF had killed 8,000 Hezbollah terrorists since the start of the war. Some 3,000 since the start of Operation Roaring Lion, and 700 in the past month alone.
"The capture of Beaufort is a dramatic stage and a dramatic change in the policy we are leading. We have broken the barrier of fear. We are taking the initiative, we are operating on all fronts – in Syria, in Gaza, in Lebanon; we have established security zones beyond our borders to protect our communities," he said.
This last statement seemed to indicate that Netanyahu may seek to hold Lebanese territory even beyond the Litani River to pressure Hezbollah toward disarmament, though many experts think the Lebanese terror group will not yield.
Later Sunday night, the IDF said that the number of Hezbollah fighters killed since the ceasefire was up to 900.