BEIRUT (Dispatches) – Israeli forces shelled five towns in southern Lebanon on Friday and flew drones at low altitude over Beirut, while the United Nations warned that more than one million Lebanese are facing acute food insecurity as a direct consequence of Israel’s ongoing military aggression and the mass displacement it has caused.
Lebanon’s National News Agency reported that an Israeli tank fired two artillery shells toward a house in the Al-Mashaa area of Mayfadoun in the Nabatieh district. 
In the Marjayoun district, Israeli artillery targeted the towns of Tallousa and Bani Hayyan, accompanied by machine-gun fire toward Tallousa. 
Artillery shelling also struck Majdal Zoun and Buyout al-Sayyad in the Tyre district, while Israeli forces opened machine-gun fire toward the main road leading to Al-Mansouri. 
Drones flew at low altitude over the capital without carrying out attacks. No casualties were immediately reported.
The attacks came despite a U.S.-brokered framework agreement signed on June 26 that was meant to end the fighting and provide for an Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory in parallel with the deployment of the Lebanese army. 
Israel continues to occupy areas in southern Lebanon, some held for decades and others seized during the 2023-2024 war when Israeli ground forces advanced roughly 10 kilometers into Lebanese territory.
The humanitarian toll is compounding. A joint assessment published Wednesday by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Food Programme, and Lebanon’s Ministry of Agriculture found that 1.05 million people—21 percent of the population analyzed—are already facing Crisis or worse levels of acute food insecurity, including 52,000 in Emergency conditions.
That figure is projected to rise to 1.15 million, or 24 percent, by mid-2027.
Lebanon’s authorities estimate the cost of the Israeli invasion since October 2023 at around $27 billion. The last war, launched in March, displaced more than one million people; that number has fallen to roughly 300,000 since violence subsided in June. 
Conditions remain most acute in conflict-affected districts of southern Lebanon, as well as in Akkar and Baalbek-Hermel, where damage to farmland and restricted access to agricultural land have crippled rural livelihoods.