Breaking News:Lebanese PM bans Hezbollah’s military activities after attack on Israel | Israel-Iran conflict News– What Just Happened

Nawaf Salam says all Hezbollah activities are ‘illegal’ after the group launches attack on Israel from Lebanon.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam says Hezbollah’s military and security activities are banned, hours after Israel responded to the Iran-linked group’s rocket and drone attack by launching air raids on the southern suburbs of Beirut.

“We announce a ban on Hezbollah’s military activities and restrict its role to the political sphere,” Nawaf said on Monday in a statement.

“We declare our rejection of any military or security operations launched from Lebanese territory outside the framework of legitimate institutions.”

The prime minister said all Hezbollah military activities are “illegal” and called upon the security forces to “prevent any attacks originating from Lebanese territory”.

“We declare our commitment to the cessation of hostilities and the resumption of negotiations,” he added.

The Iran-allied Lebanese armed group said earlier on Monday that its attack on a military missile defence facility near Haifa was in retaliation for the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, “in defence of Lebanon and its people”, and “in response to the repeated Israeli aggressions”.

Israel responded by bombing Beirut’s suburbs and southern Lebanon and killing more than 30 people and injuring 149, according to the state-run National News Agency.

In a statement on Monday, the Israeli army said an overnight strike in Beirut had killed Hussein Makled, described as the head of Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters.

It accused Makled of being responsible for compiling intelligence assessments on Israeli forces and coordinating with senior Hezbollah commanders to plan attacks against Israel and said operations against the group would continue.

Hezbollah, which operates independently from the Lebanese government, has been weakened by a 2024 war, which saw Israel kill most of the group’s military and political leaders.

Under growing pressure from the United States and Israel, Lebanese authorities agreed to disarm Hezbollah, which dismissed the plan as a US-Israeli ploy and refused to surrender its weapons north of the Litani River. The group maintained that a ceasefire signed in November 2024 applied to disarmament exclusively south of the waterway.

Last month, the Lebanese government said its military would need at least four months to complete the second phase of its plan to dismantle Hezbollah’s arsenals in the country’s south. The second phase concerns the area between the Litani and the Awali rivers, about 40km (25 miles) south of Beirut.

It announced in January that it had completed the first phase of its five-stage plan, covering the area between the Litani and the southern border with Israel.

The military escalation between Israel and Hezbollah could deepen the crisis in Lebanon, which has been suffering from economic and political woes for years.

Salam called the Hezbollah attack “an irresponsible and suspicious act that jeopardises Lebanon’s security and safety and provides Israel with pretexts to continue its aggression”.

The Israeli army also ordered residents to leave 18 villages and towns, claiming they were being used by Hezbollah.

Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Beirut, said a humanitarian crisis was in the making as hundreds of thousands of people fled from southern Lebanon and the capital’s southern suburbs.

“This is part of Israel’s strategy to punish the supporters of Hezbollah and those who live in areas under Hezbollah’s influence,” she said.

Khodr added that Israel’s objective was to “turn them against the group and blame it for escalating what had been a simmering conflict”.

The US embassy in Beirut called on American citizens to not travel to the country and urged those already there to “depart Lebanon NOW while commercial flight options remain available”.

“The security situation in Lebanon is volatile and unpredictable,” it said in a social media post.