The Israeli military said it carried out an airstrike on Saturday targeting terror operatives in the Nabatieh area of southern Lebanon, the first such attack since Washington announced a framework agreement between Israel and Lebanon.

On Friday, Israel, Lebanon and the United States signed a trilateral agreement aimed at paving the way for a broader peace deal between the two Middle East nations.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said that Saturday’s airstrike targeted “suspected terrorists who posted a threat to IDF soldiers” in the Nabatieh area.

“The results of the strike are still being assessed.”

Lebanon was drawn into the broader Middle East war on March 2 when Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel in support of its Iranian sponsors, as the Islamic Republic came under US-Israeli strikes.

Israel responded with heavy airstrikes and a ground invasion in southern Lebanon, where its troops hold swaths of territory and have been carrying out extensive demolitions of homes and other buildings, saying the infrastructure was being used by Hezbollah as it built its forces along the Israeli border.

Friday’s US-brokered agreement followed five rounds of negotiations between Israeli and Lebanese officials aimed at ending the fighting. The deal “begins to put in place a framework for lasting peace and security,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at the signing ceremony.

“It’s the beginning of the beginning. There’s a lot of work ahead.”

According to the text of the agreement, Israel and Lebanon “declare their intent to conclusively end the conflict, address its underlying causes, and to therewith formally conclude any state of war between them.”

Thursday night saw four Israeli soldiers, including two officers, injured in a clash with a Hezbollah gunman in southern Lebanon.

According to a probe by the Israel Defense Forces of the Thursday incident, at around 10 p.m. in the Beit Yahoun area, a Hezbollah operative who was hiding in a building threw a grenade at........

© The Times of Israel