The ceasefire and its extension seem to be doing very little to stop the firing in southern Lebanon, and the Lebanese Health Ministry has raised the death toll since the start of the Israeli invasion to 2,534 killed and 7,863 others wounded.
The front continues to expand in the ongoing invasion as well, with the IDF issuing new evacuation orders for another dozen municipalities north of the Yellow Line, an announcement followed almost immediately by a flurry of airstrikes. The residents were ordered to head northward.
Exactly how far northward it is even possible to head anymore isn’t clear, as Israel has destroyed every single bridge spanning the Litani River, and in many areas along the Yellow Line, there is not a lot of room between the Line, where Israeli occupation forces are, and the river itself.
Smoke rises following explosions in southern Lebanon, near the Israel-Lebanon border, as seen from northern Israel, April 28, 2026. REUTERS/Shir Torem
Hezbollah, for their part, launched drone strikes against Israeli forces in southern Lebanon, and claimed hits Tuesday that wounded multiple soldiers, though the IDF has yet to confirm any casualties, and on Monday denied Hezbollah’s claims of hits on forces in Naqoura.
The occupied portion of southern Lebanon continues to see military bulldozers demolishing residential areas, and some villages are seemingly slated for outright erasure. Defense Minister Israel Katz says “governing” southern Lebanon is effectively the same as Israel’s governance of the Gaza Strip.
The talk of open-ended occupation and governance, along with the systematic destruction of residential areas and warnings against locals trying to return home has many concerned this Israeli invasion amounts to a de facto land grab, something FM Gideon Saar is trying to deny.
Saar told a news conference that Israel has “no territorial ambitions” within Lebanon at all, and that the war is entirely about dismantling Hezbollah and “Palestinian terror groups” in the border area for the defense of northern Israel. He also suggested that once Israel accomplishes that, it “will have no need to maintain its presence in these areas.”
The devil is in the details, of course. Israel and Lebanon don’t even have an established, mutually accepted border yet, with the Blue Line acting as a de facto border only, and some members of the Israeli cabinet have been pretty open about wanting the border to be the Litani River, which would involve annexing southern Lebanon entirely.
Though Saar is clearly trying to paint that as not formal policy, Defense Minister Katz himself has treated the occupation as though it’s more or less permanent, saying the south will be leveled using Gaza as a model, and that some 600,000 Lebanese will be “completely prohibited” from returning home.
