Israeli army soldiers stand next to a self-propelled Howitzer artillery gun positioned in the upper Galilee in northern Israel near the border with southern Lebanon. AFP
On Monday, Israel opened a new front in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, meeting fierce resistance from Hezbollah fighters. In recent weeks, Israeli forces have struck bridges over the Litani River and are now attempting to isolate the western Bekaa from southern Lebanon.
Israel has said it would establish a Gaza-style buffer zone inside Lebanon. “All homes in Lebanese villages near the border will be destroyed—in accordance with the Rafah and Beit Hanoun model in Gaza,” Katz said, according to Israeli media reports.
At the conclusion of the operation, he said, the occupation army will establish an alleged “security zone” inside Lebanon and “maintain security control over the entire area up to the Litani River,” adding that Israel intends to bar the return of “more than 600,000 residents of southern Lebanon” to areas south of the river and aims to “change the situation in Lebanon” through a continued military presence, effectively occupying the region.
The escalation comes as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the army on Monday to push further into southern Lebanon toward the Litani River under the stated pretext of establishing a "buffer zone," a goal dating back to 1978.
Israel’s extremist ministers have gone further, openly calling for the annexation of southern Lebanon as the military destroys bridges and homes to sever the area from the rest of the country. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich last week said the war in Lebanon "needs to end with a different reality entirely," including a "change of Israel's borders."
“I say here definitively… in every room and in every discussion, too: the new Israeli border must be the Litani,” Smotrich said, as Israeli politicians continue to publicly tout their vision of a “Greater Israel.”
Israel previously occupied southern Lebanon from 1978 to 2000 but was forced to withdraw after sustained resistance from Hezbollah and other Lebanese fighters.
Israel has launched two major wars on Lebanon: one in 2006, ending with Israeli troop withdrawal under United Nations (UN) Resolution 1701, and a second in September 2024 during Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, which concluded with a US-brokered ceasefire on 27 November 2024. However, Tel Aviv has repeatedly violated the agreement, killing hundreds of Lebanese across the country and occupying five positions in southern Lebanon.
In his latest televised appearance, Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem declared that the group's fighters would not be able to halt the Israeli invasion but would make consolidating control as costly as possible.
On Monday, four Israeli soldiers, including an officer, were killed during clashes with Hezbollah fighters near the village of Beit Leif, bringing the total number of Israeli soldiers killed since fighting escalated in Lebanon in early March to at least ten.
In a separate statement aired on Al Manar TV last week, Qassem warned that Israel’s attacks on Lebanon have continued unabated for 15 months and are part of a broader vision to establish the so-called Greater Israel, spanning “from the Euphrates to the Nile, including Lebanon.”
Doctors treating casualties of Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon have urged world leaders to take action against violations of international law, warning of the horrifying parallels between Israeli actions in Gaza and what it is now doing in Lebanon, according to The Guardian.
Lebanese healthcare workers and officials said Israeli bombings have deliberately targeted medical workers and facilities in southern Lebanon, including through the use of double-tap strikes, in what they describe as a systematic effort to make the area unlivable.
More than 1,200 people have been killed in Israeli attacks across Lebanon, according to the Lebanese health ministry, with over a million displaced—around one in five of the population—since the war began on 2 March.
UN agencies warned last week that civilians face increasing danger amid the intensified Israeli strikes, often with little warning and no safe places to flee.
On Tuesday alone, Israeli drone strikes killed four people in southern Lebanon, including two in a strike on a car near Tyre and two more in a raid on Derikifa.
Short link: