An Israeli soldier has been killed and multiple more were injured as the Israel Defense Forces holds onto a historic fort in Lebanon that has become a symbol of the country’s previous occupations.
An Israeli militia staff sergeant died Monday in a Hezbollah drone attack that injured three others near Beaufort Castle, a dilapidated fortress built by Christian knights in the 12th century. The Israeli militia had successfully captured the site and raised its flag the previous day.
Beaufort Castle is valuable for the strategic view it provides over Israeli positions across the south of Lebanon, but also for its political symbolism. The fort has changed hands between the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Israeli military, the Lebanese government, and Hezbollah for decades. It was last owned by Israel during the First Lebanon War, when it took control over the crusader castle for almost two decades. Israeli soldiers withdrew from the outpost in 2000.
“The capture of Beaufort is a dramatic stage and a dramatic shift in the policy we are leading,” Netanyahu said in a Sunday video address following Israel’s conquest of the fort. “Now my directive is to deepen and expand our hold on areas that had been under Hezbollah’s control.”
Noting the psychological potency of the fort due to its use in previous conflicts with Lebanon — which severely damaged the structures in ways never fully repaired — the prime minister boasted that Israel has “returned” to the site “united, determined, and stronger than ever.”
Defense Minister Israel Katz also gloated on Sunday, saying: “Twenty six years after the withdrawal from the security zone in Lebanon, the Israeli flag has returned to fly on the peaks that overlook the Galilee towns.”
Hezbollah member of parliament Hassan Fadlallah said the image of Israel’s flag flying over Beaufort Castle “should provoke the feelings of every loyal patriot” in Lebanon, decrying that Israel has occupied “a national archaeological site” that does not serve as a “military site for the resistance.”
During the First Lebanon War, Israeli forces pushed beyond Beaufort and surged all the way to Beirut, the Lebanese capital city, the exact scenario that the Lebanese government says it now fears.
The acquisition of the fort came just before President Donald Trump intervened in the war, trying to reestablish a ceasefire so that the U.S.’s proposed peace negotiations with Iran could be completed. Crucial to that ceasefire would be an agreement for the Israeli military not to attempt taking Beirut.
On Monday, Trump announced via Truth Social that he had a “very productive call” with Netanyahu and claimed “there will be no [Israeli] troops going to Beirut, and any troops that are on their way, have already been turned back.”
The president said he had also spoken with representatives of Hezbollah, and the leadership had “agreed that all shooting will stop — That Israel will not attack them, and they will not attack Israel.”
But it’s not entirely clear that Israel got the message. After his phone call with Trump, Netanyahu warned that “if Hezbollah does not cease attacking our cities and citizens, Israel will strike terror targets in Beirut,” and called it “our firm position.”
He added that the Israeli militia “will continue to operate as planned in southern Lebanon.”
The Israeli army announced earlier in the day that it would be expanding ground operations in the Beaufort Ridge region to “expand the forward defense line” and “destroy [Hezbollah] infrastructure and eliminate terrorists, as part of strengthening operational control in southern Lebanon.”
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The Israeli soldier killed at Beaufort was later identified as 20-year-old Staff Sgt. Adam Tzarfati. His death follows the killing of Staff Sgt. Michael Tyukin, who died in a clash with Hezbollah forces in Zawtar al Sharqiyah on Saturday.
A video emerged Monday on social media purporting to show the first-person camera of a Hezbollah drone used to attack Beaufort Castle.
