Israeli forces captured Beaufort Castle, the Crusader fortress above the Litani river, on 1 to 2 June, holding it for the first time since the 2000 withdrawal1. The capture came despite the partial ceasefire Donald Trump brokered by phone on Monday 1 June, which stood down planned strikes on Beirut and nothing south of it. The ground operations sit outside that truce entirely.
The day split clean down the middle. Trump's call halted the Beirut strikes; Benjamin Netanyahu's troops kept advancing on the ridge the call never mentioned. Netanyahu's Lebanon campaign was always the clause he fought hardest to keep out of any deal, the one he told Trump on 24 May would end the campaign if accepted. What the phone call settled in the capital, the infantry unsettled on the river.
Beaufort sits on high ground that commands the Litani crossings, the same approaches the 2006 war was fought over. Taking it while a ceasefire nominally holds is the clearest signal yet that the truce is paused by map reference, not by intent. Israel has said the Beirut halt is tactical, a breathing space rather than a wind-down, and the fortress on the ridge proves the point in stone.
