Israel orders strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs as Hezbollah rockets hit northern Israel

BEIRUT (AP) — Israel's government ordered strikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut on Monday, a day after its ground forces reached their deepest point in Lebanon in 26 years and as Hezbollah fired rockets at northern Israel including the outskirts of coastal city of Haifa.

A joint statement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said that following what they called repeated violations of the ceasefire by Hezbollah and the “attacks against our cities and citizens,” they have ordered the Israeli military to attack targets in Beirut’s southern suburbs known in Arabic as Dahiyeh.

Hezbollah agreed to halt attacks on Israel when the ceasefire was signed in mid-April but resumed following Israeli strikes in Lebanon that Israel characterized as self-defense.

After Monday's warning, large numbers of people were seen fleeing Dahiyeh, jamming roads leading out of the suburb, where Hezbollah enjoys wide support.

Israeli airstrikes overnight on southern Lebanon left six people dead, including a Syrian citizen in a village near the city of Nabatiyeh, the state-run National News Agency said. Israel struck other towns and villages near the major city, close to the the strategic Beaufort Castle and other towns the Israeli military captured in recent days.

The Israeli military meanwhile said the Air Force had intercepted two projectiles launched from Lebanon toward Israeli territory, as well as a suspicious aerial target in the area where Israeli soldiers are operating in southern Lebanon. No injuries were reported, the military said.

Hezbollah said it carried out rocket and missile attacks on northern Israel on Sunday. It said early Monday it attacked Israeli troops in Zawtar al-Sharqieh, just north of the Litani River, and struck what they said was Israeli military infrastructure in Tiberius, a few dozen miles south of the border.

The latest attacks came despite a nominal ceasefire that has been in place since April 17 and just before Lebanon and Israeli hold their next round of direct talks in Washington starting Tuesday. Hezbollah has rejected direct talks, counting on pressure from Iran, which has demanded an end to the war in Lebanon in its talks with Washington.

Lebanese officials have been scrambling in diplomatic calls including with Washington in a desperate bid to push back Israel's military escalation after Netanyahu's announcement, a Lebanese diplomatic official said. Beirut is still committed to holding talks to end the conflict despite the boiling tensions, the official said who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

Tehran's foreign ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said in his weekly press briefing Monday that Lebanon is an “inseparable part of any ceasefire and any final agreement to end the war.”

Talks between senior officials from Israel and Lebanon began in April in Washington, the first in more than three decades between the countries, which have no formal diplomatic relations.

Beirut has been mostly spared from airstrikes since the ceasefire went into effect, apart from two targeted attacks on the city's southern suburbs in May.

A U.S. official said late Sunday that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had spoken to Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to propose a fresh path to continue ongoing negotiations, as President Donald Trump weighs a tentative ceasefire extension with Iran.

Under the proposal, Hezbollah would halt all attacks on Israel and Israel would refrain from escalating military operations in the Lebanese capital of Beirut, according to the official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private diplomatic conversations.

The official said Aoun was open to the idea but that Lebanese parliament chief Nabih Berri had responded by demanding that Israel first stop all military action.

The official said the Trump administration does not expect Israel to give up retaliating for Hezbollah strikes on its territory.

Berri, a key Hezbollah ally, said in a statement Sunday that he can guarantee the militant group’s “full, comprehensive and immediate commitment to a ceasefire.” Berri added “but who will force Israel to stop its aggression?”

Aoun on Monday said in comments released by his office that “Lebanon is facing a fierce and condemned Israeli aggression.” Aoun added that his government is continuing work to end “the suffering of the Lebanese in general and the southerners in particular.”

The latest round of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has killed 3,412 people in Lebanon and displaced more than 1 million people.

Israel’s military said a soldier was killed in southern Lebanon overnight in a drone attack by Hezbollah. Hezbollah’s use of hard-to-detect fiber optic drones has been deadly for the Israeli military, which is struggling to respond.

According to Netanyahu’s office, at least 26 Israeli soldiers and a defense contractor have been killed in or near southern Lebanon. Two civilians have also been killed in northern Israel.

Melzer reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writer Matthew Lee contributed to this report from Washington.

A view of he Beaufort Castle in southern Lebanon as seen from northern Israel, Sunday, May 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A Philippine senator was arrested Monday on a charge of plunder after he allegedly pocketed a huge kickback in a flood-control project. It is the latest crisis to hit the country's Senate, the upper chamber where a battle for control of the country's political future is playing out.

The special Sandiganbayan anti-graft court had initially issued a warrant for Sen. Jinggoy Estrada’s arrest Friday on a graft charge. He surrendered but was soon released on bail.

The new charge for which he was arrested Monday carries no right to bail.

Estrada, 63, has strongly denied allegations mainly by a former government public works engineer, that he received more than 570 million pesos ($9.3 million) in kickbacks from flood control projects.

Estrada had earlier told reporters at the Senate that he would surrender to authorities after receiving the warrant. Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla and police forces took him into custody at the chamber.

“There will be no special privileges,” Remulla said of Estrada and his other co-accused, including former Public Works Secretary Manuel Bonoan, who was separately placed under arrest.

Estrada suggested that the corruption cases he was facing and his arrest were a result of his being aligned with the camp of former President Rodrigo Duterte and his daughter, incumbent Vice President Sara Duterte, a former ally but now an arch political rival of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

“I will not yield to threats. I will not be intimidated,” Estrada told reporters at the Senate. “I will not be pressured into surrendering my independence of judgement."

The senator was an actor like his father, former President Joseph Estrada. Both have been previously detained on other corruption-related charges.

Several other senators and members of the House of Representatives have been implicated in the flood control anomalies in a poverty-stricken Asian archipelago that is among the most vulnerable to deadly floods and typhoons.

With Jinggoy Estrada’s arrest, two senators in the 24-member chamber would now be effectively sidelined by legal troubles.

Another senator, Ronald dela Rosa, has gone into hiding after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for his arrest for an alleged crime against humanity.

Dela Rosa was a former national police chief who enforced a brutal anti-drugs crackdown under then-President Rodrigo Duterte that left thousands of mostly low-level suspects dead. The unprecedentedly large numbers of killings alarmed Western governments.

Duterte, who stepped down in 2022 after his stormy six-year term, was arrested last year on orders of the ICC and flown to the Netherlands, where he was detained and will face trial for alleged crimes against humanity starting in November over some of the killings.

Duterte and dela Rosa have denied any wrongdoing but Duterte had repeatedly threatened drug suspects with death.

The absence of Estrada and dela Rosa is a setback to Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, also an ally of the Dutertes, who recently captured the Senate presidency with a slim majority. With the two out of the Senate, the remaining 22 senators are evenly split between Cayetano’s camp and his rivals.

The numbers are crucial because the Senate will start to put Vice President Sara Duterte on trial in July after she was impeached on May 11 by the House of Representatives, which is dominated by the president’s allies.

Sara Duterte, who has announced her plans to seek the presidency in 2028, was impeached on criminal allegations, which include unexplained wealth and threatening to have the president, his wife and a former House speaker assassinated if she herself were killed due to their political disputes.

She has denied the allegations. If she is convicted by the Senate with the required two-thirds vote of the chamber’s membership, she will be barred permanently from holding public office.

FILE - Senator Jinggoy Estrada speaks on behalf of his father and former Vice President Joseph Estrada during the 90th anniversary of the Office of the Vice President Nov. 14, 2025, at a hotel in Makati, Philippines. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila, File)