Israel Strikes South Lebanon Despite Truce, At Least Seven Killed

For Belgrade, which tracks every shift along the line between Washington and Tehran because of the fallout for energy prices and the stability of a European neighbor, Saturday’s news carries a blunt message: the ceasefire announced the day before has already been broken. Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon killed at least seven people, including two children, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency, while some Lebanese sources put the toll as high as 23. The city of Nabatieh and a string of nearby villages were hit at the very moment the geopolitical reality on the ground seemed to be moving, at last, toward de-escalation.

The difference from yesterday is not a matter of nuance. On June 19, a renewed ceasefire was announced, presented as the first tangible result of a diplomatic channel that European chancelleries had, indirectly, helped open. On June 20, that framework was shattered by new casualties. That is why this is not a continuation of the same story but a new development, one that recalculates the math for every actor, from Beirut to Brussels.

What exactly happened on Saturday?

According to Lebanese authorities, the strikes hit Nabatieh, one of the largest cities in the south, as well as surrounding villages. The Israel Defense Forces say they remain, in their words, committed to the ceasefire agreement and are responding to repeated violations from the other side of the line. The ground, however, speaks a different language: the previous night Hezbollah fired around 50 projectiles at Israeli troops deployed in southern Lebanon, and the Israeli response arrived with civilian casualties.

This dynamic, an alternating exchange of fire while both sides insist the truce formally holds, is the most dangerous possible scenario. A deal that exists on paper but not on the ground quickly loses credibility with those who guaranteed it. And the guarantor of this framework was not Lebanon alone, nor Israel alone, but the broader structure built by Washington and Tehran.

Why is the US-Iran deal at risk?

The provisional agreement between the United States and Iran to end the war was conceived as an umbrella over local truces, including the one in southern Lebanon. Every fresh wave of casualties tears at that umbrella. The consequence is already visible: Tehran has pulled out of the technical talks that were due to begin in Switzerland, leaving the diplomatic process, at least for now, without a key interlocutor.

For Iran, withdrawing from the technical talks signals that it will not sit at the table while its allies on the ground take losses. For the United States, the breakdown of the Switzerland talks means a painstakingly assembled framework is collapsing faster than it was built. The multilateralism meant to carry this process, with several mediators and a series of parallel channels, shows its fragility: a single day of strikes is enough to shake an architecture built over months.

For the region around Serbia, the implications are concrete. Every prolongation of war in the Middle East means uncertainty on energy markets, new migration pressure toward southeastern Europe, and further polarization within the European Union itself over how to respond. Brussels has reacted slowly and in fragmented fashion in previous crises, and the new strikes on Nabatieh put back on the table a question that European capitals have for years avoided asking out loud.

So one question remains, and it concerns not only Beirut and Tel Aviv but everyone who has staked political capital on this truce: if the deal does not survive even its first 24 hours, what does the word ceasefire mean the next time Washington and Tehran utter it?