Israel is ordering the residents of dozens of villages in southern Lebanon to leave their homes “immediately” and flee north of the Zahrani River.
“Hezbollah activities are forcing the (IDF) to take strong action against them in those areas,” IDF Arabic language spokesman Avichay Adraee wrote in a post on X, adding that the Israeli military “does not intend to harm” villagers.
The order comes as Israeli politicians have floated increasingly far-reaching plans to destroy Lebanese villages along the border with Israel and expel their inhabitants. An Israeli military official told CNN last week that the IDF is considering a plan to destroy civilian infrastructure within 2 to 3 kilometers of the Israeli border to create a buffer between Lebanon and northern Israel.
Lawmakers from Israel’s far-right decried those plans as insufficient over the weekend, demanding that the military consider the wholesale expulsion of Lebanese civilians south of the Litani River and create a “new security border.”
The order issued Monday appears to go further. All of the villages listed are north of the Litani.
Nonetheless, the lawmakers’ demands were nearly identical to plans outlined by Defense Minister Israel Katz last month. Katz said that the Israeli military intends to destroy Lebanese villages and “maintain security control over the Litani area,” barring the 600,000 Lebanese who fled north from returning to their homes “until the safety and security of northern Israeli residents is ensured.”
The destruction will be “in accordance with the Rafah and Khan Younis model in Gaza, in order to remove the threat to Israeli communities,” Katz said, referring to two Palestinian cities that Israel bombed heavily during the war in Gaza.
Asked whether the order on Monday is related to Katz’s comments, the IDF declined to comment.
