Hezbollah said it was fighting Israeli forces who landed in eastern Lebanon by helicopter across the Syrian border
This frame grab from AFPTV video footage taken on March 9, 2026 shows plumes of smoke rising from the southern suburbs of Beirut early in the morning after a loud blast was heard. Israel’s military said it struck the Beirut area early on March 9, targeting Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah. PHOTO: AFP
Human Rights Watch on Monday accused Israel of “unlawfully” using white phosphorus over residential parts of a southern Lebanese town last week. “The Israeli military unlawfully used artillery-fired white phosphorus munitions over homes on March 3, 2026, in the southern Lebanese town of Yohmor,” the New York-based rights group said in a report.
HRW added that it “verified and geolocated seven images showing airburst white phosphorus munitions being deployed over a residential part of the town and civil defence workers responding to fires in at least two homes and one car in that area”.
At least two artillery-delivered white phosphorus munitions were airburst over a residential neighbourhood in the town of Yohmor, in southern Lebanon, March 3, 2026. PHOTO: Human Rights Watch
White phosphorus, a substance that ignites on contact with oxygen, can be used to create smokescreens and to illuminate battlefields. But the munition can also be used as an incendiary weapon and can cause fires, horrific burns, respiratory damage, organ failure and death.
Israel — which kept up strikes targeting Hezbollah despite a 2024 ceasefire — launched multiple waves of strikes across Lebanon since last week and sent ground troops into border areas after the Iran-backed group attacked it.
The Israeli army has since repeatedly called on people living south of the Litani River, around 30 kilometres (20 miles) north of the Israeli border, to leave.
At least 394 people have been killed in Israeli attacks, Lebanese authorities said, registering more than half a million people as displaced. “The Israeli military’s unlawful use of white phosphorus over residential areas is extremely alarming and will have dire consequences for civilians,” Ramzi Kaiss, Lebanon researcher at HRW, was quoted as saying in the report.
“Israel should immediately halt this practice and states providing Israel with weapons, including white phosphorus munitions, should immediately suspend military assistance and arms sales and push Israel to stop firing such munitions in residential areas,” he added.
Lebanese authorities and HRW have, over the past years, accused Israel of using controversial white phosphorus rounds in attacks authorities say have harmed civilians and the environment.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency on Sunday said Israeli forces targeted the towns of Khiam and Tal Nahas, near the border with Israel, “with artillery and phosphorus shelling”.
Last month, Lebanon accused Israel of spraying the herbicide glyphosate on the Lebanese side of their shared border, with President Joseph Aoun decrying it as a “crime against the environment”.
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Hezbollah said on Monday it was fighting Israeli forces who landed in eastern Lebanon by helicopter across the Syrian border, the second such operation since the outbreak of the latest conflict with Israel.
Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East war last week when Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah attacked Israel in response to the killing of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during US-Israeli strikes.
Israel, which has kept up strikes targeting Hezbollah despite a 2024 ceasefire, launched multiple waves of strikes last week across Lebanon and sent ground troops into border areas.
In a statement on Monday, Hezbollah said it detected “the infiltration of approximately 15 Israeli enemy helicopters” from the Syrian side of the border in eastern Lebanon, an area where Hezbollah holds sway.
The group said its fighters “engaged the helicopters and the infiltrating force with appropriate weapons, and the confrontation” was ongoing. Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) earlier reported “fierce clashes… towards the outskirts of the town of Nabi Sheet to repel Israeli forces that carried out a landing by helicopters” in the area.
Two Hezbollah officials in the Bekaa region, where Nabi Sheet is located, told AFP that an Israeli helicopter was downed.
The Israeli army did not immediately comment on the incident.
It is the second such attack after an Israeli commando operation in Nabi Sheet and its surrounding areas overnight Friday failed to find the remains of Ron Arad, an airman missing since 1986, killing 41 people.
