Katz: IDF to establish security zone 20 miles deep into Lebanon

The Israel Defense Forces would establish a security zone in Southern Lebanon, extending to the Litani River, following its campaign against Iranian-backed Hezbollah, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Tuesday.

“At the conclusion of the operation, the IDF will position themselves in a security zone inside Lebanon, along a defensive line against anti-tank missiles,” Katz stated after a security assessment with senior military officials, including Deputy Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Tamir Yadai.

The Litani River lies some 20 miles north of the Blue Line, which currently demarcates the unofficial border between Israel and Lebanon.

Katz announced that the 600,000-plus residents of Southern Lebanon who were evacuated northward in recent weeks would be barred from returning south of the Litani “until the safety and security of northern Israeli residents is ensured.” He also said that all homes in Lebanese villages near the Blue Line would be demolished to eliminate cross-border threats, citing models used by the IDF in the Gaza Strip’s Rafah and Beit Hanoun areas.

Israeli forces continue to operate in Lebanon “to protect the residents of the north and to remove direct threats against them,” Katz said, adding that troops were entering villages “with great force,” eliminating Hezbollah terrorists, destroying infrastructure and weapons and demolishing buildings used as firing positions.

“We are determined to separate Lebanon from the Iranian arena and to pull the snake’s teeth and strip Hezbollah of its ability to threaten, changing once and for all the situation in Lebanon, with an IDF security presence in the necessary places—with strict enforcement and absolute deterrence, just as in Syria and Gaza,” the defense minister vowed.

“We promised to protect the communities of the north, and that is exactly what we will do,” he declared.

Iranian-backed Hezbollah began firing rockets and suicide drones at Israel from Lebanon on March 2, in retaliation for the Jewish state’s targeted killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Khamenei was killed in the opening strikes of “Operation Roaring Lion/Epic Fury” against the regime on Feb. 28.

In response to the terrorist organization’s violation of the U.S.-brokered Nov. 27, 2024, truce agreement, Jerusalem launched an aerial campaign against Hezbollah and ordered IDF troops to advance and take control of additional areas in Southern Lebanon to halt cross-border attacks.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on March 23 that the Israel Defense Forces should establish the Litani River as the Jewish state’s “new border with the Lebanese state.”

The ongoing campaign against Hezbollah “must end with a radical change” beyond the vanquishing of the Iranian-backed terror group, the senior Cabinet minister told reporters during a faction meeting of his Religious Zionism Party at the Knesset in Jerusalem.

“The Litani must be our new border with the Lebanese state, just like the Yellow Line in Gaza and like the buffer zone and peak of the Hermon in Syria,” said Smotrich.

“We must not return to the Oct. 6 situation where the enemy is on our fences,” Smotrich continued, in reference to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre. “We’ll push him away on all fronts and create a sterile security cordon that will separate the enemy from our citizens,” he said.