On Tuesday, November 18, 2025, the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp on the outskirts of Sidon, southern Lebanon, was rocked by an Israeli airstrike that killed at least 13 people and wounded many more. The attack, which targeted an area near the Khalid bin al-Walid mosque and a nearby football pitch, was the deadliest incident in Lebanon since a ceasefire was declared between Israel and Hezbollah nearly a year ago. The camp, Lebanon’s largest for Palestinian refugees, is home to nearly 80,000 people living in just 1.5 square kilometers, making the devastation particularly acute.
Lebanon’s health ministry reported that ambulances continued to transport the wounded to nearby hospitals long after the strike. According to Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency, the initial target appeared to be a car near the mosque, but the raid soon expanded to include the mosque itself and a center of the same name. Local media described scenes of chaos and heartbreak, with footage circulating online showing civilians and rescue teams carrying bodies and remains through crowded, dust-choked streets. One particularly harrowing video showed the scattered remains of victims laid out on a stretcher, the grief of onlookers palpable.
The Israeli military claimed responsibility for the strike, stating it had targeted “terrorists who operated in a Hamas training compound in the Ain al-Helweh area in southern Lebanon,” and that it was “operating against Hamas’s establishment in Lebanon.” However, Hamas immediately condemned the attack and dismissed Israel’s assertion as “pure fabrication and lies,” insisting that “there are no military installations inside refugee camps in Lebanon” and that the area hit was a “well-known open sports field regularly used by young men from the camp.”
Palestinian residents and activists described the strike as a “massacre.” The BBC reported that many in the camp awoke to what one outlet called “a wound reminiscent only of the Nakba, to blood unjustly spilled under the missiles of the Zionist entity, which continues to pursue Palestinians everywhere, even in camps they believed to be their last refuge.” The incident sparked immediate outrage among local leaders, with a meeting held in Sidon the following day to issue a joint condemnation and express solidarity with the families of the dead and wounded.
Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese political and militant group, also issued a statement condemning the strike, calling it “another violation of Lebanese sovereignty, the ceasefire agreement and UN Resolution 1701.” The group warned, “the pillars of the Lebanese state must understand that any show of leniency, weakness or submission to the enemy will only embolden it.” Hezbollah’s statement added, “Lebanon’s sources of strength are the only guarantee for foiling the enemy’s plans and defending the country’s sovereignty and security.”
The timing and location of the strike have raised serious concerns across Lebanon and the broader region. The attack came despite a ceasefire brokered by the United States and France that took effect on November 27, 2024, and was designed to end over a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah. The agreement required Israel to withdraw from southern Lebanon, allowed civilians on both sides to return to their homes, and stipulated that Hezbollah relocate its fighters and weapons north of the Litani River, with the Lebanese army assuming security responsibilities in the south. However, as reported by Al Jazeera and UN experts, Israel has carried out approximately 500 airstrikes in Lebanon since the ceasefire, resulting in more than 108 deaths and, according to UN experts, over 4,000 Lebanese killed in Israeli attacks over the past two years.
Just hours before the Ain al-Hilweh strike, Israeli drone attacks elsewhere in southern Lebanon killed two people in the towns of Blida and Bint Jbeil. The following day, on November 19, the Israeli military conducted another wave of airstrikes targeting Hezbollah weapons storage facilities in the villages of Deir Kifa, Shehur, Ainata, and Tayr Felsay. The military accused Hezbollah of “rebuilding dozens of terrorist infrastructure sites in the area of the village, including headquarters and weapons storage facilities, some inside civilian homes.” The Israeli military said it had issued evacuation warnings to residents before the strikes, urging them to leave buildings suspected of housing Hezbollah military infrastructure. The National News Agency confirmed that all four locations had been hit, with a building in Deir Kifa collapsing and fireballs observed in Tayr Felsay.
The escalation in violence has not gone unnoticed by Lebanon’s political leadership, though official responses have been muted. President Joseph Aoun did not comment publicly on the airstrike, and his only reported conversation with Lebanese Armed Forces Commander Gen. Rodolphe Haykal on Wednesday concerned unrelated security matters. Meanwhile, schools in Sidon closed in protest, and a general strike was observed in the Ain al-Hilweh camp to mourn the victims and protest what local leaders termed “crimes of the occupation.”
The situation is further complicated by ongoing efforts to disarm Palestinian factions in Lebanon. On September 13, 2025, the Lebanese Armed Forces announced that they had received five truckloads of weapons from Ain al-Hilweh as part of a broader disarmament process. However, the camp remains, as one security official told Reuters, “a heavily armed stronghold of terrorist activity.” The disarmament process, while significant, has clearly not resolved the underlying tensions or prevented the camp from becoming a flashpoint in the broader Israel-Hezbollah conflict.
For many in Lebanon, the latest airstrikes are a grim reminder of the fragility of the current ceasefire and the persistent risks faced by civilians living near the border. The United Nations and humanitarian organizations have repeatedly called for all parties to respect the ceasefire and protect civilian lives. Yet, as the events of this week have shown, the cycle of violence remains unbroken, and the prospects for lasting peace appear as distant as ever.
As the dust settles over Ain al-Hilweh, the people of the camp and the wider region are left to count their losses and brace for what may come next. The tragedy has once again underscored the precariousness of life for Lebanon’s Palestinian refugees and the ever-present danger posed by unresolved conflicts and shifting alliances along the country’s southern border.
