Israel’s defense minister outlined plans on Tuesday to occupy a swath of southern Lebanon, offering his clearest indication yet that Israel intends to control the region even after its ground invasion ends.
As Israel expands that ground offensive, the minister, Israel Katz, spoke in more explicit terms than ever before about plans for an occupation. He said Israeli forces would control “the entire area” from the border to the Litani River — a stretch of territory that is 20 miles from Israel at its deepest point — after the offensive had concluded.
He reiterated that this would include the demolition of entire Lebanese border towns and that hundreds of thousands of displaced residents would not be able to return.
“The return of more than 600,000 residents of southern Lebanon who fled north will be completely prohibited south of the Litani until safety and security of northern Israeli residents is ensured,” he said.
For decades, southern Lebanon has been dominated by Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group that has fought multiple wars with Israel.
Shortly after Israel and the United States attacked Iran in late February, Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel in solidarity with Iran. That set off a renewed Israeli offensive against the group that has seen sweeping evacuation orders across southern Lebanon and large-scale bombardment.
Israeli officials have said their objective is to set up a “security zone” to prevent territory in southern Lebanon from being used to attack communities in northern Israel near the border. Mr. Katz’s latest comments have deepened concerns about a renewed Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon — more than a quarter of a century after the last 18-year occupation of the same area ended in 2000.
Lebanon’s government has condemned Israel’s military campaign and appealed to the international community to intervene. Last week, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam warned the U.N. secretary general, António Guterres, about “the risk of annexation,” citing Israeli threats to “occupy and annex the area south of the Litani River.”
During an address to the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday from Beirut, Tom Fletcher, the U.N. under secretary general for humanitarian affairs, also warned that Israel could soon occupy a large swath of southern Lebanon, asking council members how the international community should prepare “for a new addition to the list of occupied territories.”
Hezbollah’s decision to fire rockets into Israel in early March came little more than a year after the last full-scale war with Israel ended, at least formally, with a cease-fire. On the ground, the truce was almost nonexistent given near daily Israeli strikes on Lebanon.
More than 1,200 people have been killed in Lebanon since the war resumed, and more than a million people have been displaced, according to the Lebanese authorities. This has fueled a deepening humanitarian crisis.
In Israel, at least 29 people have been killed amid the wider war with Iran and Hezbollah, including 10 Israeli soldiers killed during the ground invasion of southern Lebanon.
Mr. Katz said the destruction of Lebanese border towns would follow the Israeli “model” employed in parts of Gaza, where large areas were flattened and depopulated during the country’s two-year war with Hamas, another Iran-backed group. The war followed the Hamas-led attack on Israeli on Oct. 7, 2023.
The Israeli military issued fresh evacuation orders on Tuesday for the southern outskirts of the capital, Beirut. They were soon followed by airstrikes in the once densely populated area where Hezbollah holds sway.
The cluster of neighborhoods has largely emptied in recent weeks amid sustained Israeli bombardment and evacuation orders, though some residents have periodically returned to check on their homes or retrieve belongings.
After days of bad weather, Israeli drones again whirred over Beirut on Tuesday as the skies cleared, unnerving a city already on edge.
Further south along the border, Hezbollah militants engaged in fierce ground fighting with Israeli forces as they made a creeping advance toward the Litani River. So far, the invasion has extended a few miles into Lebanese territory.
The 90-mile Litani River has long divided the rest of the country from Lebanon’s southern borderlands with Israel, one of Hezbollah’s strongest bases of operations and an area where the group retains deep support among the largely Shiite Muslim population.
Gabby Sobelman and Aaron Boxerman contributed reporting.
Euan Ward is a Times reporter covering Lebanon and Syria. He is based in Beirut.
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