Recent weeks have seen the number of new casualties in the ongoing Israeli invasion of Lebanon slow to a relatively low level, but Thursday marked an increase in operations and led to growing concerns that once again the IDF was preparing to escalate the conflict.
Demolition operations were carried out in Ebel al-Saqi, a village just north of Khiam, which saw IDF troops sweep in overnight, spraying the area with heavy machine gun fire. Several homes and a stone-cutting facility were destroyed in the course of the operations, and a Syrian worker was wounded in the machine gun fire.
Further north near Nabatieh al-Fawqa, Israel was targeting the area with artillery fire, and an Israeli drone attacked a vehicle full of paramedics belonging to the local Islamic Health Organization, wounding several.
An elderly man speaks with a military member as residents attempt to enter Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh village, as Lebanese army troops deploy in the area following the withdrawal of Israeli forces, under a U.S.-brokered plan, in Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh, Lebanon July 22, 2026. REUTERS/Aziz Taher
Meanwhile, the third day of the “pilot zone” program saw locals in the area around Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh, a Lebanese village that was ceded to Lebanese military occupation, continued slowly, and there were already reports that dozens of locals were waiting outside the village to be allowed to return. Initially expelled by Israeli forces, it is now the Lebanese troops that are preventing their return.
Elsewhere in the south, Israeli troops advanced into the Chaqra area and raised an Israeli flag over Dobai Castle, an historically significant Crusader-era fort that is basically just of interest from an archaeology perspective and has seemingly no strategic value.
It is the second Crusader castle Israel has captured in the war, though Beaufort Castle, further to the north, is in much better condition and has plausible military value to the occupiers. Raising a flag over this castle was, according to Lebanese Culture Minister Ghassan Salame, simply a “provocation.”
