عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Arab World

Israeli Military Sets up Roadblocks in Southern Lebanon, Announces It Won’t Withdraw by Deadline

This picture taken from Lebanon's southern village of Shaqra on January 25, 2025 shows an Israeli army Merkava main battle tank moving along a road at the entrance of the village of Houla along the border with Israel in south Lebanon. (AFP)
This picture taken from Lebanon's southern village of Shaqra on January 25, 2025 shows an Israeli army Merkava main battle tank moving along a road at the entrance of the village of Houla along the border with Israel in south Lebanon. (AFP)
TT
TT

Israeli Military Sets up Roadblocks in Southern Lebanon, Announces It Won’t Withdraw by Deadline

This picture taken from Lebanon's southern village of Shaqra on January 25, 2025 shows an Israeli army Merkava main battle tank moving along a road at the entrance of the village of Houla along the border with Israel in south Lebanon. (AFP)
This picture taken from Lebanon's southern village of Shaqra on January 25, 2025 shows an Israeli army Merkava main battle tank moving along a road at the entrance of the village of Houla along the border with Israel in south Lebanon. (AFP)

Israel's military Saturday set up roadblocks across border towns and roads in a strategic valley in southern Lebanon, a day before the deadline for it to withdraw from the area under an agreement that halted its war with the Hezbollah group.

The Israeli military, meanwhile, confirmed that it will not complete its withdrawal from southern Lebanon by Sunday as outlined in the ceasefire agreement.

The deal that went into effect in late November gave both sides 60 days to remove their forces from southern Lebanon and for the Lebanese army to move in and secure the area, along with UN peacekeepers. Israel says Hezbollah and the Lebanese army haven’t met their obligations, while Lebanon accuses the Israeli army of hindering the Lebanese military from taking over.

In a statement Saturday, the Israeli military said the agreement is progressing. But it said in some sectors, “it has been delayed and will take slightly longer.”

The Lebanese military has said that they had deployed in areas following Israeli troops’ withdrawal, and in a statement Saturday accused the Israeli military of “procrastinating” in their withdrawal from other areas.

Washington appears to support an extension of this withdrawal phase.

While Lebanese army soldiers are dispersed across the south’s western sector, Israeli troops remained in control of most of the southeastern sector.

Members of the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, said Israeli tanks and bulldozers have unexpectedly moved and set up several roadblocks, apparently in an attempt to prevent displaced Lebanese people trying to return to their villages.

In Mais al-Jabal, peacekeepers from a Nepalese battalion watched in their position along the UN-mandated Blue Line as an Israeli jet flew overhead following the sound of what they said was an Israeli controlled demolition of a building.

There are no residents left in that town and the vast majority of the buildings seen by Associated Press journalists were reduced to rubble or pancaked after intense Israeli shelling and airstrikes, following by clashes during its ground invasion. The few that stood had their walls blown out and are badly damaged. The piles of rubble and debris on the road make it impossible for civilian cars to enter the town that once was home to a few thousand people.

The scene is similar in neighboring towns, including Blida and Aitaroun, where almost all the structures have collapsed into mounds of rubble and no residents have returned.

The peacekeepers tried to appeal for permission to move across the roadblocks, but were not authorized to do so. An AP crew that had joined UNIFIL on patrol was stranded as a result.

“There is still a lot of IDF (Israeli army) activity going on in the area,” said Maj. Dinesh Bhandari of UNIFIL’s Nepalese battalion in Mays al-Jabal overlooking the Blue Line. “We are waiting for the deconfliction and then we will support to deploy the LAF (Lebanese army) in that position.”

When asked about weapons belonging to Hezbollah, Bhandari said they had found caches of weapons, munitions and mines in some structures during their patrols.

Israel says it has been taking down the remaining infrastructure left by the Hezbollah, which has a strong military and political presence in the south. Israel since its ground incursion into Lebanon said it also targeted a tunnel network, and has conducted large-scale demolition of buildings in a handful of border towns.

Lebanese officials have complained that the Israeli military is also destroying civilian homes and infrastructure.

In a call with French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun pointed to the “destruction of villages adjacent to the southern border and the bulldozing of lands, which will hinder the return of residents to their areas,” according to the state-run National News Agency. France, along with the US, is a guarantor of the ceasefire deal.

Some 112,000 Lebanese remain displaced, out of over 1 million displaced during the war. Large swaths of southern and eastern Lebanon, as well as Beirut’s southern suburbs were destroyed in Israeli bombardments.

Most Viewed

 
 
Arab World

Lebanon: Hezbollah Boycotts Cabinet Session over Iran Ambassador Expulsion

A previous session of the Lebanese Parliament (National News Agency)
A previous session of the Lebanese Parliament (National News Agency)
TT
TT

Lebanon: Hezbollah Boycotts Cabinet Session over Iran Ambassador Expulsion

A previous session of the Lebanese Parliament (National News Agency)
A previous session of the Lebanese Parliament (National News Agency)

Ministers from Hezbollah and its ally Amal boycotted Lebanon's cabinet session on Thursday in protest over the government declaring the Iranian ambassador persona non grata, a Lebanese official told AFP.

The two Shiite parties have a combined four ministers, with one independent Shiite also represented in the cabinet present at the meeting, the official said, as the spat over the Iranian diplomat's expulsion escalated.

Hezbollah is an armed movement backed by Iran, which also has political representation in both government and parliament.

Arab World

Lebanese Fear Another Occupation as Israel Threatens to Use Gaza Tactics in the South

Israeli military vehicles maneuver on the Lebanese side of the border, as seen from the Upper Galilee in northern Israel, 25 March 2026. EPA/ATEF SAFADI
Israeli military vehicles maneuver on the Lebanese side of the border, as seen from the Upper Galilee in northern Israel, 25 March 2026. EPA/ATEF SAFADI
TT
TT

Lebanese Fear Another Occupation as Israel Threatens to Use Gaza Tactics in the South

Israeli military vehicles maneuver on the Lebanese side of the border, as seen from the Upper Galilee in northern Israel, 25 March 2026. EPA/ATEF SAFADI
Israeli military vehicles maneuver on the Lebanese side of the border, as seen from the Upper Galilee in northern Israel, 25 March 2026. EPA/ATEF SAFADI

As Israel trades fire with Hezbollah, calls for mass evacuations and sends ground troops deeper into Lebanon, its leaders have hinted at a long-term occupation modeled on the devastating conquest of much of Gaza after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

Israel says it needs to establish a zone of control in the depopulated south to shield its own northern communities, which have faced daily rocket attacks since the Iran-backed militant Hezbollah group joined the wider war. Many in Lebanon fear that could mean the open-ended displacement of over a million people, the flattening of their homes and a loss of territory.

Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz said this week that it would create a “security zone” up to the Litani River, some 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border in some places. He said troops would destroy homes, which he claimed were being used by militants, and that residents would not return until northern Israel is safe.

The campaign would mirror the one in Gaza, in which Israeli forces flattened and largely depopulated the eastern half of the Palestinian territory, Katz said on Tuesday. Israel has said it won't withdraw from the enclave until Hamas disarms as part of a US-brokered ceasefire deal.

“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 Hanoun and Rafah in Gaza,” Katz said, referring to border towns that were largely obliterated.

From one war to the next

After a 2024 ceasefire halted Israel's last war with Hezbollah, Israeli forces gradually withdrew from southern Lebanon except for five strategic hilltops along the border.

Lebanese returned to find that homes, infrastructure, and some entire villages destroyed. Israel said it had dismantled Hezbollah infrastructure that could have been used to launch an Oct. 7-style attack, and it continued to strike what it said were militant targets on a near-daily basis after the truce.

Hezbollah resumed it attacks after Israel and the United States launched the war with Iran on Feb. 28, accusing Israel of having repeatedly violated the ceasefire. Israel accused Lebanon's government of failing to carry out its pledge to disarm Hezbollah, despite its unprecedented steps toward criminalizing the group.

In the latest fighting, Israel has launched blistering air raids across Lebanon, killing more than 1,000 people — mostly outside of the border area — and displacing over a million. It has warned residents to evacuate a wide swath of the south, extending from the border to the Zahrani River, some 55 kilometers (34 miles) away.

The Israeli military says it has launched a limited ground operation. Political leaders speak of more ambitious plans.

Bezalel Smotrich, Israel's far-right finance minister and a member of its Security Cabinet, said this week that the current war must end with “fundamental change.”

“The Litani must be our new border with the state of Lebanon,” he said.

Echoes of an earlier occupation Israel invaded southern Lebanon in 1982 during the country's civil war. Hezbollah, established that year, waged a guerrilla campaign that eventually ended the Israeli occupation in 2000.

This time around, Israel has bombed seven bridges over the Litani, the northern edge of a UN-patrolled buffer zone established after previous conflicts. Israel says Hezbollah was using the bridges to move fighters and weapons, and that its military will control the remaining crossings.

Heavy fighting has meanwhile erupted in the town of Khiam, the fall of which would cut off the south from Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley, another area with a large Hezbollah presence.

After the bridges were bombed, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun accused Israel of seeking to sever the south from the rest of the country “to establish a buffer zone, entrench the reality of occupation, and pursue Israeli expansion within Lebanese territories.”

UN peacekeepers say the bombing of the bridges and ongoing clashes have hindered their operations and put personnel at risk.

“This is the closest fighting activity we have seen to our positions,” said Kandice Ardel, spokesperson for the UN mission known as UNIFIL. “Bullets, fragments, and shrapnel have hit buildings and open areas inside our headquarters.”

Ardel said peacekeepers at observation points have seen a growing presence of Israeli troops and “engineering assets,” though they have not seen any new military positions built yet.

‘Different shades’ of control

Mohanad Hage Ali, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East think tank in Beirut, said Israel has already established “different shades” of control.

“The first line of borders is a no-man zone. This is basically a large parking lot that is facing Israel,” he said. “There is nothing there, no movement, nothing at all.”

Lebanese movement is restricted farther north. During last year's olive harvest, farmers struggled to reach their groves because of regular Israeli strikes and had to be accompanied by Lebanese troops and UNIFIL peacekeepers, who coordinated with Israel.

Sarit Zehavi, the founder and president of the Alma Institute and a retired Israeli military officer, said Israel will likely establish a more extensive area of control stretching farther north.

She acknowledged that Israel was unlikely to defeat Hezbollah and was at risk of having to maintain a long-term presence in southern Lebanon.

“But the other alternative is to take the risk that we will be slaughtered. It’s as simple as that,” she said.

No diplomatic offramp in sight

Lebanon's government has broken a longstanding taboo by proposing direct talks with Israel. It has also taken action against Hezbollah since the last war, criminalizing its activities and claiming to have dismantled hundreds of military positions.

But neither the US nor Israel has shown any interest in such talks as they focus on the wider war with Iran.

If negotiations occur, Israel could demand major concessions in exchange for relinquishing territory taken by force — an updated version of the decades-old “land for peace” formula.

Israel seized parts of Syria after the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar Assad and is in talks with the new government in Damascus about an updated security arrangement. In Gaza, it has vowed to keep half the territory until the militant Palestinian Hamas group lays down its arms, as each side has accused the other of violating the truce reached in October.

Lebanese who fled their homes are meanwhile in limbo — and some fear they may never return.

Elias Konsol and his neighbors fled the Christian border village of Alma al-Shaab with UNIFIL's help. He was reunited with his mother, who cried in his arms, at a church near Beirut where funeral services were being held for a resident killed in an Israeli strike.

Konsol said there were no weapons or Hezbollah fighters in his village, but it was forced to evacuate anyway.

“We no longer know our fate,” he said. “We don’t know if we will see our homes and village again.”

Arab World

Lebanon: Hezbollah Claims Targeting 10 Israeli Merkava Tanks

Israeli tanks near the Israeli side of the border with Lebanon, amid escalating hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, as the US-Israeli conflict with Iran continues, in northern Israel, March 25, 2026. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu
Israeli tanks near the Israeli side of the border with Lebanon, amid escalating hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, as the US-Israeli conflict with Iran continues, in northern Israel, March 25, 2026. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu
TT
TT

Lebanon: Hezbollah Claims Targeting 10 Israeli Merkava Tanks

Israeli tanks near the Israeli side of the border with Lebanon, amid escalating hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, as the US-Israeli conflict with Iran continues, in northern Israel, March 25, 2026. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu
Israeli tanks near the Israeli side of the border with Lebanon, amid escalating hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, as the US-Israeli conflict with Iran continues, in northern Israel, March 25, 2026. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu

Lebanon's Iran-aligned Hezbollah group said Thursday that it struck10 Israeli Merkava tanks in three southern towns along the border.

In a series of separate statements, Hezbollah said that its members targeted the advanced Israeli tanks with guided missiles in the towns of Deir Siryan, Debel, and Al-Qantara, and achieved confirmed hits.

Earlier, Hezbollah said it targeted the headquarters of the Israeli Ministry of War in the center of Tel Aviv, and the Dolphin barracks of the Military Intelligence Division north of Tel Aviv with a number of missiles.

The Israeli military said an Israeli soldier was killed in fighting in south Lebanon after the army announced it was conducting ground operations against Hezbollah.

"Staff sergeant Ori Greenberg, aged 21, from Petah Tikva, a soldier of the Reconnaissance unit, Golani Brigade, fell during combat in southern Lebanon," the military said.

In total, three Israeli soldiers have been killed in fighting in south Lebanon since Hezbollah drew the country into the Israel and US war on Iran by launching rocket attacks against Israel on March 2 to avenge the killing of Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei.

Israel is responding by launching large-scale raids on Lebanon, while its forces have advanced into southern Lebanon.

After the Lebanese Presidency repeatedly announced its readiness to open direct negotiations with Israel in order to end the war, Hezbollah announced its refusal to negotiate "under fire."

Its Secretary-General, Naim Qassem, said Wednesday in a statement: "When negotiating with the Israeli enemy under fire is proposed, it is an imposition of surrender and a deprivation of all of Lebanon's capabilities."

He called on the government to "reverse its decision to criminalize resistance and the resistance fighters," after announcing a ban on the party's security and military activities, as part of a series of unprecedented measures it has taken since the outbreak of the war.