Early on in the March invasion of Lebanon, Israel defined a new boundary called the Yellow Line, south of which their operations were meant to be confined. This included a substantial amount of southern Lebanon, and led to an increasingly protracted occupation, but gave the illusion of the invasion being contained.
In recent days, however, the Israeli Army operations are progressively expanding across the Yellow Line and deeper into Lebanon. Israeli tanks and armored bulldozers are a regular site in villages north of the line, and increasingly the “buffer zone” established by Israel seems nebulous, and subject to unilateral expansion at any given time.
Israeli forces continued to shell southern Lebanon in several areas overnight and carried out an airstrike against the city of Nabatieh, killing at least one person and wounding another. The victims have yet to be identified. The IDF presented it as retaliation to a Hezbollah drone attack in the Ali al-Taher Ridge area.
IDF map shows “yellow line” buffer zone within southern Lebanon | Image from X
Yet more airstrikes were reported in the al-Qantara area, though what was hit and why are as yet unclear. The situation in Qantara is increasingly uncertain, as Israel collapsed a substantial part of the nearby mountain in the course of their demolitions, though both residents and media are denied entry to the area so the extent of the damage is mostly just the subject of speculation.
Israeli media, for its part, is dutifully spinning the ongoing occupation as necessary and even supported by the Lebanese Army, with KAN telling wild stories of massive Hezbollah forces underground across the nation and citing unnamed “senior US officials” as saying the Lebanese Army was eager to see the occupation continue because it believed only Israel could handle the Hezbollah threat.
The Lebanese Army was quick to issue a statement disputing this claim, saying they in no way were opposed to Israel withdrawing from Lebanese territory and that they were committed to carrying out their duties to support Lebanese sovereignty.
