With US and Israeli officials constantly insisting everything that is happening in southern Lebanon is Hezbollah’s fault, there was an underlying assumption that there would be a public backlash against Hezbollah as locals lives got progressively worse. While there were early reports that people resented Hezbollah’s role in the war during the early days, that view seems to be shifting as the destruction continues to scale.
Occupied by Israel, and watching Israeli military bulldozers destroy their homes and villages, many have less and less time to hold Hezbollah responsible, and are instead turning to Hezbollah for protection, as the only faction that is in any way resisting the ongoing attacks.
This should come as no surprise, as making the local population desperate and leaving them with only one group to turn to has continually ended with the locals, whether they want to or not, becoming more reliant on that group.
A man inspects damage buildings after an Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs, following an escalation between Hezbollah and Israel amid the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran, Lebanon, March 7, 2026. Picture taken with a mobile phone. REUTERS/Stringer
Israel’s narrative likely isn’t helping matters in this case, as they continue to insist everything they’re destroying is Hezbollah infrastructure, and that it’s all “terror sites,” its increasingly apparent that the IDF is destroying everything in its path, including large numbers of civilian homes. IDF commanders even admitted earlier this week that the de facto policy is to destroy Shi’ite villages.
While the Lebanese government is talking about eventually “reclaiming” the lost territory from Israel, they continue to engage in talks that end in “ceasefires” that don’t actually end Israeli attacks on the south, so when Hezbollah politicians say they is no real ceasefire in place, it rings true.
That ceasefire continues to accomplish very little, and Israel’s strategy within the “buffer zone” closely mirrors what Israel has done in the Gaza Strip in recent years. Earlier this week, Defense Minister Israel Katz even made that comparison, saying governing the buffer zone was like governing Gaza.
For those living inside the buffer zone, this sense of constant intermittent displacement, threatened by permanent displacement if Israel follows through on plans to erase their villages, this is just a continuation of a long problem. As Israeli strikes on paramedics and civilian homes full of women and children continue apace, the idea that they were going to blame Hezbollah for everything was simply unrealistic.
