Israel captured the historic Beaufort Castle and the surrounding strategic ridge as it pushed deeper into Lebanon, the IDF announced on Sunday. The IDF’s advance into Lebanon, in an effort to constrict Hezbollah rocket and drone fire, came as a soldier was killed and four others were lightly wounded in a Hezbollah explosive drone attack a short distance away. The soldier, Staff Sgt. Michael Tyukin, 21, of the Givati Brigade’s Reconnaissance Unit, was an only child who moved to Israel from Ukraine with his mother in 2020.
Troops took over territory in the Beaufort Ridge and Wadi Saluki stream area and expanded strikes north of the Litani River after the Hezbollah terror group fired multiple rockets and drones at Israel on Saturday afternoon and evening, forcing schools near the border with Lebanon to close on Sunday. Israel had withdrawn from Beaufort in 2000, when it pulled out of southern Lebanon. The castle is some five kilometers from the border, and its recapture is not the IDF’s deepest advance into Lebanon, with troops operating up to 10 kilometers from the border since 2024.
Footage from Sunday morning showed Israeli and IDF flags flying over the citadel, a strategic medieval Crusader-built fortress with symbolic importance in the history of Israel’s military entanglements in Lebanon. Shelling was audible and smoke rose from the surrounding area.The fortress, also known as Qalaat al-Shakif, commands sweeping views of the Galilee Panhandle in northern Israel, as well as the Nabatieh area in southern Lebanon, making it a position of considerable strategic value. Israeli troops captured the castle in one of the first battles of the First Lebanon War in 1982. (Ed note: Great videos of the old castle. Do take a minute and check them out.) (Read More)
