Prime Minister Netanyahu on Sunday said he had instructed the IDF to expand its "security buffer zone" in Lebanon in order to "thwart the threat of invasion and to keep the anti-tank missile fire away from our border".
Netanyahu said that the military action would strengthen Israel's security position and that "we are determined to fundamentally change the situation in the north" of the country.
"Hezbollah still has a residual capacity to launch rockets at us," the prime minister warned, though he did not elaborate on what the expansion would mean in practice.
Southern Lebanon has been largely cut off by airstrikes on bridges along the Litani River since Iran-backed Hezbollah joined the war on the side of the Islamic Republic after an Israeli strike killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
In Lebanon, more than a million people have since been displaced amid fighting. The country’s health ministry said on Sunday that, since March 2, more than 1,200 people have been killed, including 124 children, while more than 3,500 people have been wounded.
Last week, Eitan Davidi, the mayor of Margilot in northern Israel, made a tearful televised plea to Netanyahu as the north once again hunkers down in shelters amid Hezbollah missile and drone fire. “How many more rounds,” he said on Channel 12. “You’ve destroyed Kiryat Shmona, you’ve destroyed the border settlements, you’ve already destroyed it all.”
Nonetheless, Defence Minister Israel Katz has confirmed that the IDF plans to occupy part of southern Lebanon until the threat from Hezbollah has been neutralised.
"Hundreds of thousands of residents of southern Lebanon who evacuated northward will not return south of the Litani River until security for the residents of the north is ensured,” he said last week.
“The principle is clear: Where there is terror and missiles, there will be no homes and no residents, and the IDF will be inside.”
Echoing Katz’s statement, IDF spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin said that the operation in Lebanon had “just begun”, adding: “We are expected to face several more weeks of fighting against Iran and Hezbollah.
“With each passing day, we are weakening the terror regime more and more. We will not allow the terror regime and its proxies to pose a threat to the state of Israel.”
Israel has maintained a presence in Lebanon beyond the deadline set out in a 2024 ceasefire between the two sides, arguing that the Lebanese Army has not deployed as stipulated under the truce to replace its withdrawing forces.
However, for the past week, the IDF has been expanding this presence in the form of what it calls a “forward defence”.
The area south of the Litani has traditionally been the site of Hezbollah’s provincial strongholds and a platform for attacks against northern Israeli communities.
Israel previously occupied the region in 1987 following a war with the PLO in Lebanon, during which Hezbollah emerged as a political and military force, but withdrew in 2000 following the election of Ehud Barak.
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