Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz has threatened to seize additional territory in southern Lebanon and launch a ground offensive, warning that Beirut’s southern suburbs, known as Dahiyeh, “will also be evacuated, struck and displaced.”
“If Hezbollah joins Iran in an attack on Israel, it will be dealt a heavy blow and lose additional territory in southern Lebanon, in the areas of Nabatieh and the Litani, which will become part of Israel’s permanent security zone,” Katz said during a visit to the so-called buffer zone in occupied southern Lebanon this morning.
Katz added that “the IDF is prepared to carry out the ground offensive,” and that the Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut’s southern suburbs, known as Dahiyeh, “will also be evacuated, and its terror infrastructure will be struck, and more than one million Shiites will become displaced in Lebanon.”
There has been an increase in such remarks in recent weeks, including on Gaza, ahead of the October 27 election.
Despite a framework agreement between Lebanon and Israel signed in June, Israel has continued to occupy large parts of the south, where it has systematically demolished homes and infrastructure in dozens of villages.
Israel Katz has previously said that Israeli forces will not be withdrawn from Lebanon, suggesting an extended occupation similar to the last Israeli occupation, which lasted 22 years.
The Lebanese Shia group Hezbollah launched retaliatory attacks on Israel on March 2, for the first time in more than a year, in response to daily Israeli violations of the November 2024 ceasefire and the assassination two days prior of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, at the start of the US-Israeli assault on Iran.
Israel responded by intensifying its war on Lebanon for a second time in under two years. Israeli attacks, as well as its reinvasion of southern Lebanon, displaced more than 1.2 million people.
Israel currently occupies a zone stretching up to 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) deep into southern Lebanon. Behind the so-called “Yellow Line” that marks the end of that occupation zone, Israel continues to detonate homes. Israel uses the same “Yellow Line” term to refer to the areas it controls in Gaza.
Around 50 frontline villages, including places like Khiam and Bint Jbeil, have been destroyed.
