In the course of prosecuting the ongoing invasion of southern Lebanon, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has announced that he is ordering the destruction of every bridge across the Litani River, raising doubts over whether the hundreds of thousands of people they ordered evacuated from south of the river will ever actually be allowed to return.
Israel ordered the population out of the area south of the Litani River at the war’s onset, and has expanded that to include the area between the Litani and Zahrani Rivers. They have also issued evacuation orders for Shi’ite portions of Beirut, leaving well over a million civilians displaced.
Attacks in and around the Litani River bridges were already becoming commonplace last week, including a high-profile incident on Thursday in which Israel attacked a RT press crew reporting from northern Tyre overlooking one such bridge. The reporter and cameraman were injured in the attack, and Israel defended the incident saying everyone was warned to evacuate and “sufficient time had passed.”
The Qasmiya Bridge, over the Litani River, was destroyed Sunday | Image from X
The bridge seen in the background of the Thursday attack, which is along a main Lebanese coastal highway, was destroyed outright on Sunday, meaning anyone still in the major city of Tyre who has yet to evacuate is effectively trapped in southern Lebanon now, which the IDF feeling entitled to attack anyone and everyone still there, even clearly marked press members.
In his statement Sunday, DM Katz said that he had also ordered IDF troops to step up the demolition of civilian homes in southern Lebanon, particularly in towns close to the Israeli border, presenting the leveling of those villages as “along the model of Rafah and Beit Hanoun,” two cities in the Gaza Strip that Israel has largely destroyed in the course of their war there.
Locals in southern Lebanon, the ones who are left, are increasingly concerned that the mass destruction of parts of the area and the deliberate demolition of bridges connecting it to the rest of the country are a prelude to Israel establishing another de facto occupation of the region.
Israel occupied southern Lebanon in 1982 and was present in the region through 2000. Israeli troops invaded and occupied parts of the south in 2024, and never withdrew from the country despite the ceasefire that ended that previous war specifying they were meant to do so. This latest invasion seems set to further expand long-term Israeli presence in the region.
