U.N. meets as Israel, Hezbollah tensions raise Beirut strike fears

France’s call for an emergency Security Council meeting captured the central problem in Lebanon: U.N. pressure was rising just as the war kept moving. Israel had warned of strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, while its forces pushed deeper into southern Lebanon and seized Beaufort Castle and a strategic ridge that the United Nations said recalled the 1982 to 2000 occupation.

The council was again confronting a basic question of leverage. Resolution 1701 remained the framework both sides were being urged to respect, while resolution 1559, adopted in 2004, called for the withdrawal of foreign forces, the disarmament of militias and the extension of Lebanese government control over all territory south of the Litani River. But neither text gave the council direct enforcement power on the battlefield, where Israeli troops were still advancing and Hezbollah was still firing.

The human cost was already severe. More than 1.2 million Lebanese had been displaced since March 2, when Hezbollah began firing rockets and drones into Israel, and the U.N. said at least 2,489 people had been killed and 7,719 injured in Lebanon by April 23. Israel said its latest operations were a response to Hezbollah fire, including one of the heaviest barrages since an April ceasefire, underscoring how quickly diplomatic language was being overtaken by military escalation.

President Donald Trump later said Israel and Hezbollah had agreed not to attack each other. He said he spoke with Hezbollah through intermediaries and with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, adding that Israel would pull back troops preparing to attack southern Lebanon and that Hezbollah would stop shooting. In parallel, a Lebanese official said Hezbollah had told the United States, through Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, that it was willing to halt attacks on northern Israel if Israel spared Beirut and its suburbs.

The council’s debate also exposed the fragility of the peacekeeping architecture built around southern Lebanon. UNIFIL, created in 1978 after Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon, was extended in August 2025 until December 31, 2026, but with a final drawdown set in motion. That left the Blue Line, the U.N.-drawn withdrawal line set in 2000, functioning as a border in practice even though it is not one in law, and left U.N. diplomacy trying to restrain a conflict whose most important decisions were still being made by force.