Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Sunday they have instructed the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to destroy all bridges over Lebanon’s Litani River and wipe out structures that could be used to shelter Hezbollah fighters in an effort to apply the “Gaza model” to the Iran-backed terrorists of Lebanon.
“In addition, we have ordered an acceleration in the destruction of Lebanese homes in contact-line villages to neutralize threats to Israeli communities, in accordance with the model of Beit Hanun and Rafah in Gaza,” Katz said.
The Litani River is the natural boundary of Southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah terrorists swarmed to attack Israel a few days after the IDF and U.S. military joined forces to strike Iran. Iran’s terrorist Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) described Hezbollah’s rocket attacks on Israeli cities as part of a “joint and integrated operation.”
The Lebanese government has grown increasingly exasperated with Hezbollah for unilaterally dragging Lebanon into the war, using weapons Hezbollah was not supposed to have under the previous ceasefire deal with Israel. Israel appears to have lost confidence in the Lebanese Army’s will or ability to disarm Hezbollah, so the IDF issued evacuation orders for all civilians south of the Litani River two weeks ago and, last week, it reportedly began preparations for a “massive operation” on the ground.
Katz reportedly said on Sunday that the IDF will continue to allow Lebanese civilians to use the evacuation routes out of the combat zone and north over the Litani River while eliminating the bridges Hezbollah is using to move personnel and rocket launchers into southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah claimed it was able to conduct 55 attacks against Israel on Friday, the highest number since the start of the war, while the IDF said it was “striking targets of the terrorist organization Hezbollah in Beirut” after ordering the evacuation of seven outlying neighborhoods.
By Sunday, Israeli airstrikes against the Beirut suburbs had subsided, but heavy ground fighting was reported in several districts of southern Lebanon. An Israeli spokesman said the goal was to eliminate as many militants as possible, turning southern Lebanon into Hezbollah’s “cemetery.”
The Israeli Air Force struck the Qasmiya Bridge over the Litani River on Sunday, the fifth bridge over the river to be targeted. According to Israeli estimates, nearly a thousand fighters from Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force have used the Litani bridge network to enter southern Lebanon since the conflict began.
“The Hezbollah terror organization uses this crossing to transfer thousands of weapons, rockets, and rocket launchers that it uses to carry out terror attacks from the area south of the Litani against IDF troops and Israeli civilians,” the IDF said.
The Israeli military said the Qasmiya Bridge had to be eliminated “to prevent harm to Israeli civilians, as well as to Lebanese civilians.” After-action photos showed the tough century-old bridge was pitted with bomb craters, but still largely intact.
The government in Beirut angrily objected to the IDF strike on the Qasmiya Bridge, while human rights groups expressed concern that civilians could be trapped inside the conflict area.
“These attacks constitute a dangerous escalation and a blatant violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty. They are considered a prelude to a ground invasion — something Lebanon has repeatedly warned against through diplomatic channels,” Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said via social media on Sunday.
“If all these bridges are struck, and the region that is south of the Litani becomes isolated from the rest of the country, then the civilian harm is going to be so immense that you have a humanitarian catastrophe as people still living in the south won’t be able to access food, medicine, and other basic needs,” warned Human Rights Watch (HRW) researcher Ramzi Kaiss.
The IDF said on Monday that its operation against Hezbollah “has only just begun,” and “targeted ground operations” will continue.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich made one of the most aggressive public comments on the scope of the operation to date on Monday, advising Israel to annex all of southern Lebanon and move its border to the Litani River.
“I say here definitively… in every room and in every discussion, too: the new Israeli border must be the Litani,” Smotrich, who leads one of the smaller parties in Netanyahu’s governing coalition, said in a radio interview.
Some Lebanese Christians are still refusing to evacuate their homes south of the Litani River, contending they have no part in the Hezbollah-Israel conflict and do not feel they should lose their homes and property.
“Once or twice a week, a convoy from the Lebanese army accompanies us as we try to get basic goods from nearby areas. Already, we have no state electricity, no water, and we have diesel shortages. If all the routes to the north get cut off, who knows what the future could hold for us,” Mayor Hann Amil of the Christian border town of Rmeish said on Monday.
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