Israeli warplanes flattened a residential building and struck a paramedic vehicle in the southern Lebanese village of Kfar Rumman early Monday, killing at least 11 people including two children and two medics, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry. The AP reported a toll of 12. While Washington brokered a "framework agreement" just months ago promising calm, the truce is in tatters — and the bill for America's endless Middle East entanglements keeps climbing.

The strikes came after Israel claimed Hezbollah launched explosive drones at Israeli troops from the area. Hezbollah did not claim the attacks nor issue a statement, per AP. Israel said it targeted a Hezbollah militant transporting weapons into Kfar Rumman. Residents on the ground saw something different: families buried in rubble. "Are there missiles here?" asked resident Saleh Medlej, pointing to the destroyed building where families with children lived. Mayor Abdullah Farhat called it "a massacre in every sense of the word" and blasted Lebanese leaders who "signed deals and we are paying the price here."

Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr, reporting from Kfar Rumman, said "uncertainty and fear" now define southern Lebanon, where people had started returning to rebuild after the June deal. "The feeling here is that Israel is trying to impose or establish new rules of engagement," Khodr reported. "Civilians are being killed. Residential homes are being destroyed." She added it was no longer a rescue operation — "It's a recovery operation."

The broader toll is staggering. Al Jazeera reported more than 4,350 killed and over 12,300 wounded in Lebanon since the conflict escalated in early March, with 135 healthcare workers killed in 179 Israeli attacks on ambulance crews since March 2.

Here's the part the Beltway crowd doesn't advertise: the June "pilot zone" framework — brokered by Washington — was supposed to be the off-ramp. Israeli forces would withdraw from southern Lebanon; Hezbollah would disarm. Neither happened. Israel says it won't withdraw until Hezbollah disarms countrywide. Hezbollah says it won't disarm north of the Litani River. The diplomatic process is "stalled," per Al Jazeera. Israel now claims "operational control" of the strategic Ali Taher hill overlooking the region. AP reports Israel has carried out repeated airstrikes while Hezbollah has fired drones at Israeli troops — both sides violating the truce Washington arranged.

NewsBreak, bundling the story with an unrelated Houthi claim about downing a Saudi plane, reported the lowest death toll at nine — a reminder that casualty counts in these conflicts are always contested and often revised downward in early reporting.

The pattern is familiar: Washington brokers a deal, the deal collapses, civilians die, and the machinery of war grinds on with American fingerprints all over it. Every framework agreement, every diplomatic initiative, every "pilot zone" costs political capital and taxpayer resources while producing no lasting peace. The same permanent foreign policy class that can't secure America's own border keeps selling the public on managing conflicts 6,000 miles away.

How many more collapsed truces before Washington admits it can't solve the Levant's problems — and stops asking working Americans to fund the attempt?