Israel on Saturday (March 21, 2026) targeted Tehran and Beirut through airstrikes, even as Iran reworked the terror group Hezbollah’s command structure to prepare it for a war with Tel Aviv.
Israel said it attacked Hezbollah sites in Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, as it stepped up strikes on the Iran-based armed militia in the deadliest escalation of the three-week war in West Asia.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) also struck Iran soon after it hit Beirut-based Hezbollah sites. The IDF said it had “identified missiles launched from Iran” towards its territory at least three times within six hours.
In a social media post, the IDF said it targeted Hezbollah bases inside Lebanon after warning the civilians there about the impending attack.
In the Arabic-language warning, the IDF listed seven neighbourhoods in southern Lebanon as the stronghold of Hezbollah, an Iran-based terror group that was raised to attack Israel.
“The Defense Army continues its operations and strikes against military infrastructure belonging to the terrorist Hezbollah in various parts of the (Beirut) suburbs with increasing force,” the IDF post said.
Lebanon’s state media, earlier, said one person was killed and two others wounded in the Israeli strikes that hit a house in a southern town within its territory.
“Israeli fighter jets launched a heavy strike at dawn on a house in the town of Ghandouriyeh … resulting in one martyr and two wounded people who were pulled from under the rubble,” Lebanon’s official National News Agency said.
Meanwhile, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) said it had rebuilt Hezbollah’s military command structure after it was targeted by Israel in 2024.
IRGC said the restructuring exercise was taken up to plug gaps within Iranian officers before the Lebanon-based militia was reviewed and changes made to its command. The effort was to prepare for war with Israel, currently in progress, it said.
This was the first such overhaul of Hezbollah, a Shia Muslim group founded by the IRGC in 1982, following the death of the group’s commander Hassan Nasrallah and other top leaders in the 2024 war
International media reports earlier in March had noted that Hezbollah had considered another war with Israel inevitable and had spent months preparing for the battle.
The IRGC had sent its officers to Lebanon to train the Hezbollah since 2024 to get it rearmed and restructured, according to the reports.
The Israeli military had said earlier this month that Hezbollah remained relevant and dangerous, despite the damage the IDF had caused the organisation since 2024.
In the ongoing West Asia war, Hezbollah joined the battle on March 2 and has since carried out hundreds of missile firings on Israel, prompting the IDF offensive against it that killed over 1,000 people inside Lebanon.
Lebanon had earlier this month asked the Iranian-origin citizens, with links to the IRGC, to leave the country immediately.