Southern Lebanon represents, in the Israeli political and military consciousness, a cross-generational geographic and historical dilemma. This area has transformed from a quiet agricultural countryside into a testing ground for Israeli national security scenarios, after becoming at various points in history a launchpad for armed operations against Israel.
This region, stretching from the Lebanese–Israeli border northward to the Litani River, has returned to the forefront following its incursion by the Israeli army aimed at expelling Hezbollah fighters and pushing them away from the border. The ongoing Israeli confrontation with Hezbollah after October 7, 2023, reveals a persistent Israeli attempt to decouple geography from demography through strategies ranging from the systematic destruction of Lebanese border villages to the creation of a permanent, uninhabited buffer zone along its border with Lebanon.
Understanding Israel’s past and present plans for southern Lebanon requires going back to the year 1948, when the State of Israel was declared—a year Palestinians refer to as the “Nakba.” Lebanese researcher and historian Ahmad Beydoun, in his study titled “The Border Strip in Southern Lebanon – A Local Perspective,” argues that “the tragedy of the South is the offspring of the Palestinian Nakba.” Beydoun explains that thousands of Palestinians crossed into Lebanon at that time, most of them from the Galilee region.
The inhabitants of southern Lebanon—both Christians and Muslims—had long-standing, close ties in work, trade, friendship, and even intermarriage with the people of northern Palestine. With the establishment of Israel, however, an enforced isolation was imposed on the South, prompting residents to move toward Beirut in large rural migrations. Starting in the 1950s, Israel began implementing a policy of gradual “nibbling” at the border, according to Beydoun, shifting boundary markers by a few meters here and there to absorb agricultural land.
Developments escalated in the late 1960s when the South became “Fatah Land,” especially after the signing of the Cairo Agreement in 1969, which legalized Palestinian armed activity from southern Lebanon. Beydoun explains that the new Palestinian military presence initially gained popularity among border village residents due to the influence of Arab nationalism, but it soon clashed with local realities. Residents who had suffered the tragedy of 1948 did not want to see it repeated on their own land. They began to feel that the presence of military bases within their villages turned them into human shields and targets for Israeli bombardment. This tension created the vacuum that Israel later exploited to plant local proxies after expelling Palestinian fighters from Lebanon during the 1982 invasion.
With the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975 and the fragmentation of the Lebanese army along sectarian lines, Israel found a golden opportunity to establish a “proxy army” to protect its northern borders without permanently involving its own troops. Here emerged Major Saad Haddad, the officer who defected from the Lebanese army to found what became known as the “Free Lebanon Army” and later the “South Lebanon Army.”
Haddad’s rhetoric centered on protecting minorities from what he called a “foreign invasion”—a term he initially used to refer to Palestinians, and later to Syrians and Iranians. In a recorded interview from 1979, Haddad expressed early concerns about Iranian infiltration into the region:
“Everyone knows that the first group of Iranian recruits arrived in Syria, in Damascus… we are certain from reliable sources. Their intentions are clear—they are not coming as visitors, but as terrorists. They are coming to begin military operations against us and against Israel. Therefore, we have decided to be on full alert across the entire region… They know their arrival is not for benefit, but to destroy their country and force them to emigrate in order to give the land to the Palestine Liberation Organization.”
Haddad established something resembling a “mini-state” in the border strip, with full Israeli financial and military support. Israel was injecting around $35 million annually to support his militias. Cooperation was not limited to military matters—it also included the “Good Fence” project launched in 1976, which opened the Israeli border to residents of Lebanese border villages and provided them with medical and economic services, with the aim of gaining their loyalty and transforming the region into a security belt against Palestinian factions.
However, this model, despite lasting for years, carried within it the seeds of its own demise, according to Ahmad Beydoun’s study. Israel’s manipulation of minority fears deepened sectarian divisions. Beydoun recounts how Israel, through its Kataeb and local proxies, destroyed entire Shiite and Sunni villages (such as Hanine, Yarin, and Marwahin) to secure geographic continuity between Maronite enclaves. This act generated deep resentment among Shiite residents, who found themselves caught between the hammer of Palestinian organizations and the anvil of occupation and its agents. This experience ended entirely in 2000 with the Israeli army’s withdrawal and the collapse of the South Lebanon Army. Its members either surrendered to the Lebanese state and underwent largely symbolic trials before being pardoned under a settlement, or fled with their families into Israel, where they live today.
Alhurra correspondent in Israel, Yehia Qasim, explains—based on internal Israeli discussions—that reusing former South Lebanon Army members now living and naturalized in Israel to administer an occupied area in southern Lebanon today appears somewhat unlikely given the social transformations they have undergone. According to Qassem, many face economic and social problems, and in some cases a split identity between their Lebanese and Israeli affiliations, according to numerous reports.
As for finding Lebanese collaborators in southern Lebanon similar to those before 2000, this too is considered unlikely, according to Qassem’s assessments. The political and security reality in Lebanon is different from that of the 1980s, and the state appears stronger than it was before the Taif Agreement. “Despite all the criticism and weakness, it shows in limiting Hezbollah’s weapons, it still constitutes a strong governing structure there, and there is no discussion in Israel today about such a scenario.”
Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Misgav Institute and the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), represents the Israeli strategic mindset that does not trust local proxies or political promises. In an extended interview with Alhurra about the situation in Lebanon, Michael explains that Israel has changed its security doctrine after the events of October 7, 2023, shifting from a strategy of “containment” to one of “direct responsibility.”
“Israel has no territorial demands or ambitions when it comes to Lebanon. Israel has only security demands. The problem is that the Lebanese state, or the Lebanese government, and the Lebanese army are unable to do what they are supposed to do according to the commitments they have undertaken. The Lebanese army is incapable, and I believe even unwilling, to confront Hezbollah and dismantle it. There is a very large Shiite segment within the Lebanese army that identifies with Hezbollah or even supports it. Therefore, there is not enough cohesion within the army to carry out such a mission.”
Michael sees the Litani River as “the field marker of the buffer zone” that would enable the Israeli army to prevent Hezbollah from entering the area and intimidating residents of the north. He categorically rejects the idea of reviving the South Lebanon Army or finding a successor to Saad Haddad, arguing that Israel does not want to repeat that experience. Instead of relying on a local proxy, Michael proposes a strategy based on “weakening Hezbollah to the point that forces the Lebanese state to assume responsibility,” while Israel retains full military freedom to strike any emerging threat—an approach closer to the arrangement Israel reached in Gaza.
Michael also draws an important comparison between the desired buffer zone in Lebanon and those in Gaza (the “yellow line”) and the Syrian Golan, emphasizing that Israel will assume responsibility itself as long as the other side is a “failed state.”
This can also be seen in statements by Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, who clearly announced that Israel would not merely push Hezbollah fighters north of the Litani, but would work to destroy the entire “supporting environment” in the border strip. According to Israeli military reports, the plan includes demolishing all Lebanese villages and towns located along the first border line to a depth ranging between 3 and 8 kilometers. The goal is to permanently prevent the return of residents and transform the area into land devoid of population and infrastructure that Hezbollah could use in the future.
Katz stated, as reported by the British newspaper The Guardian:
“At the end of the operation, the Israeli army will control the area south of the Litani River, including the remaining Litani bridges, eliminate the Radwan forces that infiltrated the area, and destroy all weapons there. All homes near the villages will be destroyed according to the Rafah and Beit Hanoun model in Gaza.”
From here, the fate of southern Lebanon appears to be shaped by three security scenarios determining the future of the area south of the Litani River:
First Scenario
A security belt, but instead of establishing fixed barracks that would be easy targets for Hezbollah, Israel would rely on smart control using artificial intelligence and drones to maintain aerial security dominance over the area.
Second Scenario
Promoted by the Lebanese government, this scenario aims to spare southern Lebanon from Israeli occupation. It is based on disarming Hezbollah—a plan adopted since the first ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel at the end of 2024. The plan includes deploying 10,000 Lebanese soldiers south of the Litani River and dismantling Hezbollah’s infrastructure under the supervision of the international monitoring committee (the “mechanism”) composed of the United States and France. Kobi Michael views this scenario as “ideal” but proven unrealistic, noting that Hezbollah had been rebuilding its capabilities all along until it attacked Israel again after the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. According to Michael, the main obstacle to implementing this scenario is the Lebanese army’s lack of both willingness and capability to engage in a military confrontation with Hezbollah.
Third Scenario
This appears to be the most likely under current conditions. It involves Israeli firepower and military control over the border strip without administrative occupation, while Hezbollah continues its operations from north of the Litani and from among the rubble—unless a ceasefire is reached that guarantees protection for Israel’s northern regions from Hezbollah rockets and from any scenario similar to October 7, 2023 in Gaza.
One drawback of this scenario is that it implies continued exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah, with the area south of the Litani turning into a gray, uninhabited zone. This would result in demographic and sectarian pressure, stemming from the displacement of Shiite villages while leaving Christian and Druze villages along the border strip—on the condition that residents of these villages refuse to allow Hezbollah fighters to use their areas to carry out military operations against Israel.
The article is a translation of the original Arabic.
Rami Al Amine
Rami Al-Amin is a Lebanese writer and correspondent for MBN covering political, social and cultural developments across the Middle East. He produces and presents the satirical critique segment Bitter Sweet, which examines current events through a critical lens. He holds a master’s degree in Islamic-Christian Relations from Saint Joseph University in Beirut. He is the author of Ya Ali, We Are No Longer the People of the South, a political booklet on Hezbollah, and The Two Mourners, a book on the history of Beirut’s Martyrs’ Statue.
