Shafaq News
Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Lebanon, themost dangerous escalation since the 1982 invasion, is reshaping the country’ssouthern geography and threatening to trigger long-term demographic andpolitical consequences. Field estimates and statements from Israeli officialsindicate that, if the conflict were to stop at its current stage, nearly 10% ofLebanese territory could remain under direct or indirect Israeli control.
The war has already displaced more than 1.2 millionLebanese, according to the Ministry of Social Affairs, particularly followingthe escalation linked to the US-Israeli confrontation with Iran that began onFebruary 28. The figure represents nearly one-fifth of Lebanon’s population. The Health Ministry data also indicate that approximately 13,000 people havebeen killed or wounded since the conflict intensified on March 2.
While Lebanon has experienced repeated waves ofdisplacement during previous Israeli invasions and wars in 1978, 1982, 1996,2006, and 2024, the current campaign differs in both scale and method. Entirevillages and towns in southern Lebanon have been systematically destroyed,raising concerns that Israel is applying in Lebanon a model similar to the oneused in Gaza.
According to field data and publicly availablemilitary assessments, Israeli forces currently exercise direct occupation oreffective fire control over around 60 villages and towns across southernLebanon. The areas, estimated at more than 400 square kilometers, includelocations where residents can no longer safely return due to continuousairstrikes and artillery fire.
Israeli officials, including Defense MinisterIsrael Katz, have openly discussed plans for a buffer zone extending betweenseven and 15 kilometers inside Lebanese territory. Finance Minister BezalelSmotrich recently argued that the Litani River should become the effectivedividing line of the conflict zone, while National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvirwent further by publicly speaking about potential Israeli settlement plansinside Lebanese territory.
The destruction on the ground extends beyondmilitary targets. Entire villages, including Mhaibib, Aita Al-Shaab, Kfarkela,Yaroun, Maroun Al-Ras, and Odaisseh, have reportedly been leveled. Other townssuch as Khiam, Mais Al-Jabal, Blida, Houla, and Dhayra suffered near-totaldevastation. Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the UN human rights officer haveincreasingly classified such operations as potential war crimes, citing forceddisplacement and widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure.
Contrary to common perceptions, southern Lebanon isnot exclusively Shiite. Although Shiites form the majority population in manysouthern districts, the region also includes Sunni Muslims, Druze communities,and Christian villages representing multiple denominations. The scale ofdisplacement and destruction risks undermining Lebanon’s delicate sectarian andcommunal balance.
The Israeli military has consistently framed itsoperations in Lebanon as targeting Hezbollah infrastructure and personnel. However, UN humanitarian officials and field documentation indicate the impacthas extended well beyond Hezbollah-affiliated areas and communities.
The senior UN humanitarian coordinator for Lebanon,Imran Riza, confirmed after a field visit to Beirut's southern suburbs that airstrikesand demolitions were causing casualties among women, men, and children, as wellas displaced families, including Syrian and Palestinian refugees andBangladeshi migrants.
An Israeli airstrike, for example, killed at least23 people in the village of Aalmat, north of Beirut, and far from the areas insouthern and eastern Lebanon where Hezbollah maintains a major presence.
UN experts noted that many strikes hit denselypopulated residential neighborhoods and commercial areas in central Beirut, inviolation of the principles of distinction and proportionality underinternational humanitarian law.
Suha, a 30-year-old resident of Hasbaya, apredominantly Druze town in southern Lebanon, described the psychologicalstrain of living near the conflict zone.
“Every night I spend in Hasbaya, I hear explosionsand airstrikes hitting nearby villages,” she told Shafaq News, requestingpartial anonymity. “Sometimes I can see the flashes from the strikes with myown eyes. On one hand, you feel relatively safe, but on the other hand, yourpeople are being killed and losing their livelihoods.”
Although Hasbaya avoided the level of destructionseen elsewhere in the south, nearby roads, valleys, and commercial areas haverepeatedly come under attack, forcing residents to alter travel routes anddaily routines.
The WHO representative in Lebanon, Dr. AbdinasirAbubakar, also confirmed that health facilities had been directly attacked,with five hospitals forced to evacuate within a single month, and that attackson medical workers, ambulances, and civil defense centers had accelerated theerosion of Lebanon's healthcare sector.
Amnesty International noted the Israeli militaryalleged —without providing evidence— that ambulances and healthcare sites werebeing used for military activities.
Between March 2 and May 21, Israeli attacks havekilled 116 healthcare workers and injured 263 others across Lebanon, the HealthMinistry reported. The strikes have affected 147 healthcare facilities duringthe same period, including 16 hospitals and 31 healthcare centers. Theministry's overall toll since March 2 stands at 3,111 killed and 9,432 wounded.
HRW documented that the Israeli strikes on at leastnine bridges along the Litani River between March 12 and April 8 significantlylimited the ability of state institutions, humanitarian organizations,hospitals, and healthcare facilities to deliver aid and provide medical care.
Ahmad Haidar, a Lebanese civil defense activist,told Shafaq News that casualties and destruction have affected nearly allLebanese communities.
“Israel has killed people from every sect andtargeted areas across the country,” he said, adding that the destruction didnot only hit Shiite villages, but also Sunni villages such as Marwahin, Yarine,and Dhayra were devastated, while Beirut and its suburbs faced hundreds ofairstrikes that killed Sunnis, Shiites, and Christians alike.
Field reports further indicate that severalChristian-majority villages in southern Lebanon, including Rmeish, Ain Ebel,Debel, Alma al-Shaab, and Qawzah, were exposed to incursions or bombardment. Syrian and Palestinian refugees, as well as Lebanese citizens holding Europeanand American nationalities, have also been among the casualties.
The April 8 campaign, Operation Eternal Darkness,insisted that every target hit belonged to Hezbollah. The operational realitythat day told a different story. In the span of ten minutes, some 50 Israelifighter jets delivered around 160 munitions across at least five neighborhoodsin Beirut's central and coastal areas, hitting busy commercial and residentialdistricts during rush hour and sending the city into widespread panic. By thetime the smoke cleared, at least 360 people were dead and more than 1,000wounded, the vast majority of them in areas where ordinary Lebanese had beengoing about their daily lives.
The conflict’s implications extend beyond Lebanonitself. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly linkedmilitary operations in Lebanon and southern Syria under a broader security doctrineaimed at preventing hostile armed groups from operating near Israel’s northernborders.
Netanyahu previously announced plans for what hedescribed as a “security zone” stretching from Ras Naqoura on Lebanon’sMediterranean coast to areas reaching the Yarmouk Basin and Mount Hermon inSyrian territory. He also stressed that Israel would not allow Syria’s borderregion to become “another southern Lebanon,” signaling support for expandeddemilitarized zones inside Syria.
Military estimates suggest Israel currentlycontrols roughly 1,200 square kilometers in southern Syria, including theoccupied Golan Heights, which Israel seized in 1967 and formally annexed in1981. Since the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s government, Israeli forces havereportedly expanded daily incursions across Quneitra, rural Damascus, and Daraaprovinces, establishing fixed military positions and advancing to withinapproximately 25 kilometers of Damascus near Qatana.
Israeli strategic planning increasingly seeks toconnect its operational belt in southern Lebanon with its expanding militarypresence in southern Syria. Officials in Israel argue the policy is “necessaryto shield northern Israeli settlements and the occupied Golan Heights fromfuture attacks.” Critics, however, warn that the strategy risks creating apermanent occupation reality across multiple fronts.
Legally, the developments raise questions overIsrael’s compliance with the 1949 Armistice Agreement with Lebanon, the 1974Disengagement Agreement with Syria, and the UN-demarcated Blue Line. Diplomatsand regional observers believe the evolving military map could impose a newnegotiating framework on both Beirut and Damascus while broader regionaltensions with Iran remain unresolved.
As fighting continues without a clear politicalsettlement, concerns are growing that temporary military arrangements couldharden into lasting territorial changes, fundamentally altering the strategiclandscape of the Levant.
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Written and edited by Shafaq News staff.