The Israeli military struck southern Beirut on Friday for the first time since November, after Israel said that two projectiles had been fired from Lebanon. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it “struck a terrorist infrastructure site used to store UAVs by Hezbollah’s Aerial Unit (127) in the area of Dahieh, a key Hezbollah terrorist stronghold in Beirut.” The IDF said Hezbollah “systematically embeds its terrorist infrastructure amidst the Lebanese civilian population, a clear example of Hezbollah’s cynical exploitation of Lebanese civilians as human shields.”

Israel's air force conducted a large strike on a building in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital on Friday, a Reuters reporter said, the first heavy bombardment there since a truce deal in November ended a war between Israel and Hezbollah. Israel's military said it hit a drone storage facility in the area belonging to Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah. The strike, which was heard across Beirut and produced a large column of black smoke, followed an evacuation order by the Israeli military for the neighbourhood and three smaller targeted drone strikes on the building intended as warning shots, security sources told Reuters. The evacuation order sent residents of the area into a panic, rushing to escape on foot as traffic clogged the streets out of the area, Reuters reporters in the area said.

Israel carried out a limited strike on a building in Beirut’s southern suburbs on March 28 after issuing an evacuation warning for the area, the first such warning since a November ceasefire agreement between Israel and armed group Hezbollah. Beirut’s southern suburbs, known as Dahiyeh, are a Hezbollah stronghold and were pounded by Israeli strikes during the war in 2024, in which the group’s top leaders were killed, including its powerful chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee posted a map highlighting a building in the suburb of Hadath, which he said belonged to the Iranian-backed group.