The Israeli Defense Minister, Israel Katz, announced this Monday that Israel will prevent the return of “hundreds of thousands of residents” to southern Lebanon until the army considers that Katz’s statement, which subjects the 250,000 inhabitants of the area to forced displacement unlimited in time, draws parallels with the offensive in Gaza, where the Israelis control half of the Strip, converted into a buffer zone, after sowing destruction in the Palestinian territory. A military strategy that Katz will now transfer “to the Lebanese border villages”, where the army, he anticipates, will “destroy the terrorist infrastructure” of Hezbollah “just as it did” with that of Hamas in the Gazan towns of Rafah or Beit Hanun, today converted into a blanket of rubble.
The statement from the Ministry of Defense with Katz’s words comes after a meeting of the minister with the senior leadership of the Army. Hours earlier, military spokesmen had announced the start of “limited and selective” ground operations. The declared objective of this advance is the nullification of Hezbollah’s capabilities in the border area in Lebanon, where the Government registered this Monday more than one million forcibly displaced people, close to 17% of the national population.
However, Katz expands the scope of the operation and sets the objective of emptying the territory south of the Litani River, located 30 kilometers from Israel and representing 10% of the country. . It is an area where bombs and Israeli eviction orders are made, and where the majority of inhabitants are Shia Muslims, the social base of the political and armed organization Hezbollah. Katz has detailed that it will be the residents of that denomination who will not be able to return to the south.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun has reiterated his willingness to negotiate with Israel to end “another war of others in our land,” in reference to the front that Hezbollah reopened against Israel on March 2, after the start of attacks on Iran. The Israeli offensive has since killed 886 people, including 111 minors. These are data from the Lebanese Ministry of Health, which records the death of 38 health workers under Israeli bombs, six of them during the last 24 hours, in what is perceived as an attempt to empty the border area.
This Monday, Israeli troops bombed dozens of municipalities from east to west in southern Lebanon, including some near the border, where fighting is escalating, struggling to prevent the invading army from taking a position. The direct confrontation gains strength in Khiam, considered strategic due to its position at altitude and on one of the roads that connects – a region in the east where Hezbollah has weapons warehouses – and the Israeli border territory. Also between Taybe and Odaisseh, further south and on the same road that advances along the border, where the Lebanese state news agency assures that “the enemy is trying to enter Lebanese territory under intense bombardment and artillery fire.”
The statements in which Hezbollah claims attacks against Israel, where a rocket against a house in northern Nahariya this Monday caused six injuries, also reflect the presence of Israeli troops at different points along the 120 kilometers of border on the Lebanese side. From Aita al Shaab and Aitaroun (southwest), to Taybe and Jiam (northeast), where they claim to have fired “bursts of rockets” against groups of Israeli soldiers, in addition to having “successfully hit” cranes and tanks.
While the Israeli army announces bombings against alleged Hezbollah positions, the Lebanese Government expands the list of fatalities in southern Lebanon. In Qantara, in the Marjayoun district, the bodies of two children and their parents were found this Monday under the rubble. Another attack in Qotrani, near Jezzine, has left five more dead. Shots in Majdel Selm or in Aytit (Tyre) caused another three victims.
Even if it now announces the intention to extend the occupation to the Litani River, it is not likely that the Government of Benjamin Netanyahu will implement the measure while its aircraft, which usually bombs before the ground advance of the troops, remains focused on Iran. This Monday, different military statements have claimed responsibility for the bombing “of the plane used by the supreme leader” at Tehran’s Mehrabad airport, alleging that the attack “undermines the coordination capacity between the Iranian regime” and its regional allies, as well as attacks against infrastructure linked to the Islamic Republic in Shiraz and Tabriz.
The invasion plan, which Germany and Türkiye have criticized, is also expected to follow a call-up that has not yet occurred. According to security sources cited by the newspaper Yedioth AhronotIsrael prepares to mobilize 450,000 reservists. The information, which states that Israel intends to add a dozen outposts to the five it already has in Lebanon, does not detail how many of those troops would be assigned to the Lebanese front.
Currently, the Israeli army occupies half of the Gaza Strip – where new Israeli attacks have killed eight people since Sunday – and the West Bank, in addition to a territory larger than the Palestinian enclave inside Syria. The high cost of maintaining the mobilization of reservists and the exhaustion of soldiers after more than two years of war, in addition to Hezbollah’s war of attrition, are factors that make it difficult to stabilize a prolonged occupation in Lebanon, and may mean that this ends up being, rather, a negotiating card during hypothetical talks with Beirut.
Meanwhile, the intensification of the crossfire leaves the contingent, deployed in that border area under the mandate of containing hostilities, in a difficult position. After reporting “heavy machine gun fire” on Saturday against one of its border positions, in Mais al Jabal, on Sunday it recorded incidents of fire “on three separate occasions” while its forces patrolled the border. Unifil attributed this second incident to “non-state actors,” in an apparent reference to Hezbollah.
The Lebanese Foreign Minister, Youssef Rajji, and member of the Lebanese Forces – a Christian party that rivals Hezbollah in the domestic sphere – condemned this Monday the attacks against the blue helmets. Rajji recalled the decision that the Lebanese Executive took on March 2, hours after Hezbollah entered into combat with Israel, when it decreed the ban on the military arm of the pro-Iran organization, with the intention that it hand over its weapons to the State. For the moment, the Shiite group continues to wield them against Israel, which denies being willing to negotiate a ceasefire with Beirut as long as the Lebanese leaders fail to contain the militia.
