Israeli Defense Minister announces that IDF will occupy all of southern Lebanon up to the Litani River, establishing a security zone, while IDF reportedly planning on moving the border up five miles into Lebanon.
By David Rosenberg, World Israel News
Israel is preparing to push the frontier with Lebanon five miles north, Channel 14 reported on Wednesday, fundamentally reshaping security along the Israeli-Lebanese border.
On Tuesday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced that the IDF will occupy all of southern Lebanon up to the Litani River, establishing a new “security zone” spanning roughly 10% of Lebanon’s territory.
“Israel’s policy in Lebanon is clear: where there is terror and missiles – there are no homes and no residents – and the IDF will control the security zone up to the Litani,” Katz wrote on his X account.
Katz provided no details regarding the nature of the new security zone, amid suggestions by some Israeli leaders – including Katz – that Israel may take permanent control over Lebanese territory.
A day earlier, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told a Religious Zionist Party faction meeting in the Knesset that Israel should annex the territory outright.
“The Litani must be our new border with the state of Lebanon, just like the ‘Yellow Line’ in Gaza and like the buffer zone and peak of the Hermon in Syria,” Smotrich said.
However, according to the Channel 14 report, the IDF is planning to establish a separate forward defensive line within the security zone, effectively pushing the border five miles (eight kilometers) northward, into southern Lebanon.
The proposal does not contradict Katz’s plan to establish a security zone up to the Litani River, some 18.5 miles (30 kilometers) north of the border.
Instead, the Israeli military plans to establish two separate zones of control inside southern Lebanon.
The first will be just five miles deep, pushing back the frontier and establishing 18 new military outposts along a new defensive line.
The second line, a less tightly-controlled security zone, will extend all the way to the Litani River, with some additional IDF presence maintained beyond the new defensive line so long as Hezbollah has not been fully disarmed.
The report makes no mention of plans to annex the territory, however, with a focus on creating strategic depth to shield Israeli towns in northern Israel from Hezbollah attack and using an active defense approach, modeled on IDF operations in Gaza and Syria, to secure the border.
Israel already maintains five army outposts just beyond the Lebanese frontier, using them to retain control over the border following the November 2024 ceasefire deal.
Unlike the existing outposts, the planned army positions will not be adjacent to the border, and will instead project IDF control deeper into Lebanese territory.