Israel strikes fuel depot in northeastern Lebanon, widening operations against Hezbollah

Israeli Defense Forces struck fuel depots in northeastern Lebanon on Oct. 30 as part of its attack on Hezbollah in Baalbek, according to media reports.

ABC News cited an IDF statement that said the "fuel depots supplied fuel Hezbollah's military vehicles," adding the fuel was supplied by Iran.

Israel, which warned residents of Baalbek to evacuate, appeared to be expanding its military operations in Lebanon.

"The Israeli ground invasion and bombing of targets in late 2024 raise the risk of damage to Lebanon’s energy facilities, including pipelines, power plants and storage facilities," S&P Global Commodity Insights analysts said in an Oct. 17 report. "That said, the upstream footprint of the country is limited and largely offshore, limiting the potential scope of damage if not the likelihood of an attack."

US Department of State spokesperson Matthew Miller said at an Oct. 30 press briefing that Biden Administration officials Brett McGurk and Amos Hochstein will visit Israel Oct. 31 to push for a diplomatic solution.

"We want to get to the point where we have a ceasefire and a diplomatic resolution," Miller said, adding "We are not calling for one right now," but trying to "structure one" with the relevant parties.

According to the New York Times, Israel is looking for Hezbollah to withdraw from the Israel-Lebanon border in "several weeks."

The attack did not impact crude futures on Oct. 30. Crude oil futures settled higher on the day, with the NYMEX front-month contract up $1.40 at $68.61/b, on US inventory draws and better-than-expected US labor market data.

News of the IDF strike on Baalbek fuel depots followed Israel's Oct. 25 attack on Iranian military infrastructure. The strike hit targets in Tehran, Ilam and Khuzestan provinces but notably avoided Iranian oil fields and oil infrastructure, and it was quickly downplayed by local media, lessening the chances of an immediate response from Iran.

When asked why Iran's oil infrastructure was not a legitimate target, Miller said the nature of such an attack would have escalated the conflict between Israel and Iran.

"Iran would respond and then Israel would respond and soon after that we would find ourselves in a full-scale regional war, which is certainly not in Israel's interest or the interests of anyone in the region," Miller said. "We believe there is a better way to address that which is why you saw the United States impose sanctions on the Iranian oil industry including on its fleet of ghost ships in the past few weeks."

The US on Oct. 11 broadened the scope of its sanctions regime so that it can now sanction any person that operates in the petroleum and petrochemical sectors of the Iranian economy. The US also designated 23 vessels and 16 entities involved in the ghost fleet that enables Tehran’s petroleum trade.

Iran took in $53 billion from petroleum exports in 2023, up from $16 billion in 2020, while Tehran’s crude oil and condensate exports more than tripled in that same time frame, the US Energy Information Administration said in a congressionally mandated report.