Israeli forces destroyed a 200-metre Hezbollah tunnel in the southern Lebanese village of Majdal Zoun on Sunday, an operation the Israeli military said targeted hundreds of weapons and rocket launchers. The strike, which the United States was informed of in advance, came just two days after Lebanese and Israeli ambassadors signed a US-brokered framework agreement in Washington designed to de-escalate hostilities and pave the way for an Israeli withdrawal from parts of southern Lebanon. Hezbollah immediately condemned the attack as a “flagrant violation” of the ceasefire it says it has observed, and declared it reserves the right to defend Lebanon.

Israeli officials said the tunnel demolition and strikes on Hezbollah positions in Nabatieh were consistent with the framework. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the agreement as “historic” and a blow to Iran, while Defence Minister Israel Katz ordered troops to prepare for an extended stay in a self-declared security zone up to 10 kilometres inside Lebanese territory. The government maintains that any redeployment is conditional on verified disarmament of Hezbollah and handover of territory to the Lebanese Armed Forces in designated “pilot zones”. Washington frames the accord as a performance-based path toward restoring Lebanese sovereignty and ending the state of war, with a US-supported military coordination group to oversee implementation.

In Beirut, however, the agreement has been met with rejection from Hezbollah and its political allies. Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem rejected the deal as “null and void” and a surrender of sovereignty, vowing to continue armed resistance. Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a key Hezbollah ally, described the accord as “dictates” that are “ten times worse” than the 1983 Lebanon-Israel agreement, and warned it could incite internal divisions. Berri insisted that the only realistic path to an Israeli withdrawal lies in the ongoing Iran-US negotiations, and that separating Lebanon’s file from that track would prolong the occupation. These statements reflect a deep rift: the government of President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has pursued direct talks with Israel and a policy of disarming Hezbollah, while the group and its backers accuse the state of undermining resistance and sovereignty.

The framework’s central bargain—Israeli withdrawal in exchange for Hezbollah’s disarmament—is directly challenged by Hezbollah’s stated refusal to disarm and its retention of military capacity and political veto. Lebanese officials have called on Washington to press Israel to withdraw, but the US has tied any pullback to verified disarmament steps that Hezbollah has explicitly rejected. The Iran-US diplomatic track, which Tehran insists must include a Lebanon ceasefire, remains the parallel channel that Hezbollah and Berri view as the only viable mechanism. With Israeli forces continuing operations in the south and Hezbollah reserving the right to respond, the agreement’s pilot zones and security annex remain unimplemented. The next concrete step, according to the framework, is the deployment of the Lebanese army in initial pilot zones, but no timeline has been set, and the political conditions for such a move are absent.