Strikes hit hills and valleys as Israeli military keeps up pressure, it says, to force Hezbollah to disarm.

Israeli warplanes have carried out at least a dozen attacks across southern Lebanon, targeting what the military claims are Hezbollah training facilities in the latest flagrant near-daily violations that have further undermined a year-old ceasefire.

The raids hit hills and valleys in the Jezzine and Zahrani areas, including locations near al-Aaichiyeh, between al-Zrariyeh and Ansar, and around Jabal al-Rafie and the outskirts of several towns, according to Lebanon’s state news agency.

Israel’s military said it struck a compound used by Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force for weapons training, claiming the facilities were being used to plan attacks against Israeli forces and civilians.

Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Beirut described the ceasefire in Lebanon as “a one-sided truce, since Israel has continued near-daily attacks on the country.”

Khodr said the latest attacks avoided densely populated areas. “The locations were in hills and valleys, not population centres,” she said, noting this marked a repeated pattern.

“In fact, just a few days ago, in the middle of the night, they did the same thing.”

The Israeli military said it also hit what it said were rocket-launching sites and other infrastructure, describing the operations as necessary to counter what it deemed violations of understandings between Israel and Lebanon.

However, the continued bombardment has drawn sharp criticism from the United Nations, which reported in November that at least 127 civilians, including children, have been killed in Lebanon since the ceasefire took effect in late 2024. UN officials have warned the attacks amount to “war crimes”.

Khodr explained that the attacks form part of a sustained military pressure campaign.

“This is all part of military pressure on Hezbollah to force it to disarm,” she said. Israel wants the group “to give up its strategic weapons, its long-range weapons, its precision-guided missiles, its drones” which the Israeli military believes are stored in the Bekaa Valley and further inland.

But Hezbollah has sharply refused to relinquish its arsenal as long as Israel bombards and occupies parts of Lebanon. The group “doesn’t want to give up its weapons because it would view that as surrender”, Khodr added, noting that “Hezbollah and Lebanon do not have the upper hand. Israel enjoys air superiority.”

Tensions escalated further two weeks ago when Israel bombed Beirut’s southern suburbs, killing Hezbollah’s top military commander, Haytham Ali Tabatabai. The group has yet to respond, but said it will do so at the right time.

The attacks come as Lebanon and Israel recently dispatched civilian envoys to a committee monitoring their ceasefire for the first time in decades, a move aimed at expanding diplomatic engagement.

However, Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem criticised Lebanon’s decision to send former Ambassador Simon Karam to the talks, calling it a “free concession” to Israel.

Lebanese officials have expressed frustration over Israel’s near-daily attacks.

“It is one of the reasons why Lebanon agreed to sit down for face-to-face talks with the Israelis,” Khodr said, “engaging in diplomatic talks that are seen as very sensitive in Lebanon, in the hopes that it would avoid war.”

President Joseph Aoun said last week that Lebanon “has adopted the option of negotiations with Israel” aimed at stopping the continued attacks, while Prime Minister Nawaf Salam called for a more robust verification mechanism to monitor both Israeli violations and Lebanese army efforts to dismantle Hezbollah infrastructure.

“But the US ambassador to Lebanon, Michel Issa, made it clear a few days ago that even though Lebanon is sitting down in a room with a longtime enemy, it does not mean that the Israeli attacks will stop,” Khodr said.

BANGKOK (AP) — Thailand’s Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul received royal permission Friday to dissolve Parliament, setting up general elections early next year.

The election for the House of Representatives would be held 45 to 60 days after the Royal Decree, a period while Anutin will head a caretaker government with limited powers and cannot approve a new budget.

Anutin posted on his Facebook late Thursday that “I’d like to return power to the people.”

The move comes at a tricky political moment, as Thailand is engaged in large-scale combat with Cambodia over long-disputed border claims. About two dozen people were reported killed in the fighting this week, while hundreds of thousands have been displaced on both sides.

Anutin has been prime minister for just three months, succeeding Paetongtarn Shinawatra, who served only a year in office.

Anutin won the September vote in Parliament with support from the main opposition People’s Party in exchange for a promise to dissolve Parliament within four months and organize a referendum on the drafting of a new constitution by an elected constituent assembly.

The issue of constitutional change appeared to trigger the dissolution, after the People’s Party threatened to call a non-confidence vote Thursday after Anutin’s Bhumjathai voted to retain one third of Senate votes in order to amend the constitution.

Anutin served in Paetongtarn’s Cabinet but resigned from his positions and withdrew his party from her coalition government in the wake of a political scandal related to border tensions with Cambodia.

Paetongtarn, daughter of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, was dismissed from office after being found guilty of ethics violations over a politically compromising phone call with Cambodia’s Senate President Hun Sen ahead of July’s armed conflict.

The People’s Party said it would remain part of the opposition, leaving the new government potentially a minority one. The party, which runs on progressive platforms, has long sought changes to the constitution, imposed during a military government, saying they want to make it more democratic.

Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro warned that his country must “stand like warriors … ready to smash the teeth of the North American empire” Wednesday, a moment that coincided with the U.S. seizure of an oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast.

Maduro delivered the remarks while holding the sword of Simón Bolívar at a rally where video showed him singing and dancing to a recording of American singer Bobby McFerrin’s late-80s hit, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” Maduro told supporters that Venezuelans must stay alert as tensions with Washington escalate.

“In these times, things have to be different, but we must always stand like warriors, women and men,” he said in a translated interpretation. “With one eye wide open — and the other one too — working, producing, building, keeping everything running, and ready to smash the teeth of the North American empire if necessary, from Bolivar’s homeland.”

President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that the U.S. had seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, sharply escalating tensions with Caracas. The tanker was taken for allegedly transporting sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran, according to Attorney General Pam Bondi.

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Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry condemned the move in an official statement, calling it “a brazen robbery and an act of international piracy” and accusing Trump of openly pursuing a plan to “take Venezuelan oil without paying anything in return.”

The ministry said the action fits into what it described as a longstanding U.S. effort to plunder the country’s natural resources and compared the episode to the loss of Citgo Petroleum Corp., which Caracas claims was seized through “fraudulent judicial mechanisms.”

The statement argued that “the true reasons for the prolonged aggression against Venezuela” have nothing to do with migration, drug trafficking, democracy, or human rights, insisting “it has always been about our natural resources, our oil, our energy.”

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It also accused Washington of using the tanker incident to distract from what it described as the failure of political efforts in Oslo by groups seeking Maduro’s removal.

Caracas urged Venezuelans to “remain firm in defense of the homeland” and called on the international community to reject what it described as “vandalistic, illegal and unprecedented aggression.”

The government said it will take its complaint to all available international bodies and vowed to protect the country’s sovereignty and control over its energy assets, declaring that “Venezuela will not allow any foreign power to attempt to seize from the Venezuelan people what belongs to them by historical and constitutional right.”

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Tensions between the two countries have grown following months of U.S. maritime strikes that Washington says targeted vessels used by drug traffickers to transport narcotics.

Reuters has reported that more than 80 people have been killed since September, and a separate Reuters report detailed heightened surveillance and security crackdowns in coastal communities affected by the strikes.

Late last month, Maduro appeared at a mass rally in Caracas holding the sword of Simón Bolívar as he warned supporters to brace for “imperialist aggression,” delivering a defiant address after Trump said the U.S. will “very soon” begin stopping suspected Venezuelan drug traffickers on land.

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Trump said he had not ruled out sending U.S. troops to Venezuela as part of the administration’s crackdown on criminal networks tied to senior figures in Caracas. 

“No, I don’t rule out that. I don’t rule out anything,” he said.

He also left room for potential talks. 

“We may be having some conversations with Maduro, and we’ll see how that turns out. They would like to talk,” Trump told reporters over the weekend.

Since early September, U.S. strikes across the Caribbean and eastern Pacific have destroyed dozens of vessels. U.S. officials say many were linked to Venezuelan and Colombian criminal groups.

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Maduro appeared at last month’s rally holding the sword of Simón Bolívar, the 19th-century independence leader regarded as the liberator of much of South America. He told supporters the country was facing a decisive moment.

Fox News’ Efrat Lachter contributed to this report.