IDF seizes strategic and symbolic Beaufort castle in Lebanon

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]Right, Bianca. We're talking about another day of consecutive drone and missile launch rocket launches by Hezbollah into northern Israel. Over the past hour, we had air raid sirens also in the Galilee panhandle, areas like Manara, Misgav Am, Kiryat Shmona, and but also in the western Galilee areas over here, Hanita.

[00:00:22]Earlier, there was even drone siren or there were sirens in Akko, which is south of where I'm standing now. And as you described the situation on the ground, there are no schools. This is really a emergency level here in Nahariya. The streets were empty, didn't see any pedestrians out.

[00:00:44]People are sheltering at home even if there is no shelter-in-place order. All the while, Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon continue focusing on the central city of Tyre, that's on the coast, one of the biggest cities in southern Lebanon, and but also in several other areas of southern Lebanon coinciding with the advancement of ground forces making it to their deepest point in 26 years in southern Lebanon since the withdrawal in the year 2000.

[00:01:17]>> And let's talk about the significance of the IDF taking the Beaufort Castle both militarily and symbolically.

[00:01:28]>> Yeah, it's mainly the latter, Bianca.

[00:01:30]You know, with Israel's hands more or less tied with what it can do in terms of trying to exact a toll from Hezbollah, we're not seeing widespread strikes in the uh center nervous system of Hezbollah, which is in Beirut's southern suburbs. So, we're seeing more symbolic kind of steps on the ground. This doesn't mean that there is no uh military meaning for Israeli forces expanding the security zone. But if you talk to residents here of northern Israel, they for them a victory image is not the Israeli flag on a nearly thousand-year-old Crusader fort, but rather life here in northern Israel returning to normal, kids going to school, businesses operating as regular, and that is not happening with or without the capture of the overseeing strategically positioned Beaufort Castle, just 9 km, that's 5 mi, away from another major city in southern Lebanon, which is Nabatieh, which could indicate what the IDF plans to do next.

[00:02:40]But as of now, taking this uh castle, the Beaufort Castle, doesn't isn't a game-changer on the ground. It is more of what the IDF is doing over the past 48-72 hours, and that is expanding their ground control in southern Lebanon.

[00:02:58]>> All right. So, uh a little bit more symbolic, more of what we've seen in the past few days, but how contained is the situation right now? What can we expect to see in the next few hours and days?

[00:03:11]>> Look, Bianca, we have to ask ourselves, why is Hezbollah escalating in the first place? It decided to do so as diplomatic talks were ongoing on a military level between Lebanese and Israeli officials in Washington. This is their way to try and derail the talks. They're trying to uh make the talks collapse and drag Lebanon with it because they know that as they expand their barrages of rockets and drones at northern Israel, also in terms of intensity, and also in terms of the distance, the depth of their targeting from the border, this will also prompt uh more significant Israeli response.

[00:03:52]and for them, more damage in Lebanon means more strain on the talks. So, what Hezbollah is trying to do is just trying to encourage Israel to increase its strikes in southern Lebanon, hoping this will derail the diplomatic effort between Beirut and Jerusalem.

[00:04:11]>> All right, Ariel Oseran, senior Middle East correspondent. Thank you very much and stay safe.

[00:04:18]As the Israeli security establishment weighs its next moves in Lebanon, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has released [clears throat] a public plea to Benjamin Netanyahu urging the Prime Minister to strike Hezbollah's strongholds in Beirut.

[00:04:37]>> We're here on the northern border in Shtula, and we are saying very explicitly that we need to flatten Dahiyeh.

[00:04:43]I opposed the previous ceasefire, and today I say we must also flatten it. The IDF is doing its job. 600 Hezbollah members, thank God, have been eliminated in recent weeks, but that's not enough.

[00:04:54]What's happening to them is Dahiyeh. We need to go for Dahiyeh, flatten it, flatten it, and flatten it again.

[00:05:01]Hezbollah is Dahiyeh. Flatten Hezbollah in Dahiyeh.

[00:05:07]I say this here, too, and I say this to our dear Prime Minister. Dear Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, I love you, I appreciate you, but it's time to flatten Dahiyeh. We respect President Trump. We need to thank him for the partnership, but the red line is harm to soldiers, harm to civilians, and Dahiyeh needs to be flattened.

[00:05:25]>> Israel's National Security Minister, never afraid to speak his mind. Joining the conversation now in the studio is senior correspondent Owen Alterman.

[00:05:33]>> Bianca, did you know that he wants Dahiyeh flattened?

[00:05:35]>> Oh, I >> [laughter] >> I didn't hear it.

[00:05:38]>> I don't know if everyone picked that up.

[00:05:40]>> Um, before we get to a comment on uh what Ben-Gvir said and how important it is or how expected it is, let's let's take a look at the bigger picture here.

[00:05:48]Parallel to everything that's happening on the ground and in the air, uh we've got talks.

[00:05:55]Where do we stand on that?

[00:05:56]>> Right, it's a parallel universe, if you will, Bianca. Last Friday, a Lebanese military delegation going to the Pentagon to present how the Lebanese military sees things and what they see as a way to move forward in coordinating with the United States and with Israel.

[00:06:08]Haaretz reported that an Israeli source said that the idea was, as opposed to what happened in November 2024 with that ceasefire deal, this time the Lebanese military would set up special units that would be specially trained and specially vetted, and that those units would be the ones who would ultimately go and disarm Hezbollah. But a Lebanese official told Al Jazeera Al Jazeera that no such units are going to be set up.

[00:06:30]And Bianca, the next step, political talks reportedly to be held with the two ambassadors, Yacov Lidor on the Israeli side and the Lebanese ambassador in DC on the other side on Tuesday and Wednesday to talk about the political track. Bianca, I think there's a real sense that these talks have lost momentum, lost momentum, I think because the Lebanese government has assessed that Israel's not going to be able to decisively defeat Hezbollah, the United States is not going to be able to decisively defeat Iran, and therefore the balance of power inside Lebanon has not changed enough for the government to be able to take on risks in a calculated, realistic, and sensible way to be able to actually take on Hezbollah and take away its weapons. And as long as that's the case, they seem not to be willing to even, Bianca, take on lesser steps, such as loosening the Lebanese the draconian Lebanese law against contacts with Israel. And after the very brief steps, you have to say the Lebanese government took in that first round of talks, these are talks that seem to have sputtered out, even if they're continuing pro forma.

[00:07:24]>> So, a stalemate at the very least and with difficult challenges ahead. What, if you look at it from the Israeli side, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, what are his interests right now, especially when looking at the situation with Iran, that war is not likely to be resuming there.

[00:07:41]It can still happen, but there does seem to be a deal on on on the way there.

[00:07:45]What are his interests when it comes to Hezbollah right now?

[00:07:48]>> Well, you're right that everyone is looking at Iran here, Bianca, but as you know, the Lebanese issue is in in a large sense to the Israeli public an issue unto itself. We just heard uh National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. He would say flat and dark near no matter what the circumstances were. But the reality is, Bianca, that Israelis of all political stripes feel a real sense of sympathy and empathy and connection with those who are living in the northern part of the country, who are under fire, who yet again are not going to be able to send their kids to school to school in Kiryat Shmona on the border with Lebanon. And there's a real sense of frustration broadly among the public and a real sense of identification with people in the north.

[00:08:26]And Ben-Gvir therefore, as usual, is speaking in terms of his own perspective and the perspective of his voters. But Bianca, it reflects a much larger than usual slice of Israeli public opinion. A people who are extremely frustrated. And as he said, Donald Trump may have his idea of the way he sees American interests, but Israeli interests in this sense may be different. Hezbollah may have crossed an Israeli red line, and that's why the prime minister has authorized the military to go beyond Israel's buffer zone in southern Lebanon and to take more firm and more aggressive action. And for that, there's much broader support in the public far beyond Ben-Gvir and his constituency.

[00:09:01]>> So, are we seeing right now a bigger rift between the US and Israel and Israeli interests than we have a month ago, 2 months ago, and even before the war?

[00:09:10]>> Well, we haven't seen a public rift here, and the talks are continuing. I suspect Bianca >> of interests going forward, certainly.

[00:09:16]>> There may be, and I think it's going to be up to Netanyahu, not for the first time, to try to explain to Donald Trump why this is such a priority for Israel, and therefore why it should be a priority to the United States. And why allowing Hezbollah to continue to have an advantage in the balance of power in Lebanon, to continue to be able to fire at Israeli civilians and soldiers. And for the Israeli military for its part to as soon as possible find a solution to this idea of the fiber optic cable drones. That these are things that are ultimately important to the United States and Netanyahu in any case both for Israel's interest and he can say to Donald Trump who's such a fan of him politically of Netanyahu for his own political survival going into elections.

[00:09:55]The town Kiryat Shmona we just talked about Bianca where again parents can't send their kids to school. That is traditionally a Likud stronghold. Those are Netanyahu voters. And if they are frustrated come election day they may take out their anger on the Likud and on Netanyahu and they may get a hearing in wider parts of the society again with an Israeli public that greatly identifies with what's going on in the north and with the situation of northern residents.

[00:10:20]>> All right. Owen Alterman senior correspondent thank you very much.