Israel will occupy southern Lebanon up to the Litani River to create a "defensive buffer”, Defence Minister Israel Katz said yesterday, spelling out for the first time Israel’s intent to seize territory amounting to nearly a tenth of Lebanon.
At a meeting with the military chief of staff, Katz said Israeli forces would "control the remaining bridges and the security zone up to the Litani”, a river that meets the Mediterranean about 30km (20 miles) north of Israel’s border.
Lebanese armed group Hezbollah said it would fight to prevent Israeli troops from occupying southern Lebanon, calling such a move an "existential threat” to the Lebanese state.
Senior Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah said any Israeli occupation south of the Litani would be met with resistance.
"We have no choice but to confront this aggression and cling to the land,” he told Reuters.
Israel has destroyed five bridges over the river since March 13 and accelerated the demolition of homes in Lebanese villages near the border, part of what it says is a campaign against Hezbollah rather than civilians.
Under international law, attacks on civilian infrastructure, including homes and bridges, are generally prohibited.
Katz has previously warned Lebanon’s government that it would lose territory if it failed to disarm Hezbollah, the group backed by Tehran that drew Lebanon into the US-Israeli war on Iran when it fired into Israel on March 2.
The Israeli military declined to comment on Katz’s remarks.
It has previously said ground troops were carrying out limited, targeted raids near the border.
Israel has repeatedly invaded Lebanon in recent decades, and occupied the south until 2000.
There was no immediate comment from the Lebanese government.
Residents who have fled the south decried the silence.
"If our government isn’t standing with us, what is it we can do?” said Najib Hussein Halawi, who fled his hometown of Kfar Kila near the border weeks ago.
He says the village is in ruins.
Israel’s strikes across southern Lebanon and parts of Beirut have caused widespread destruction and killed more than 1,000 people, according to Lebanese authorities, with over 1mn residents forced from their homes.
The UN human rights chief has criticised Israel’s actions, particularly its use of evacuation orders.
Among those killed are almost 120 children, 80 women and 40 medical personnel, according to Lebanon’s health ministry, which does not otherwise distinguish between civilians and militants.
Two Israeli soldiers have been killed in fighting in Lebanon.
Israel kept up strikes across Lebanon yesterday, with the state-run National News Agency (NNA) reporting attacks in the country’s south and east, as well as near Beirut, after a night of bombardment on the capital’s southern suburbs.
In south Beirut, an AFP photographer saw vast destruction near the site of an Israeli strike overnight, with rubble piled up and debris covering the street.
The Israeli army said that overnight its forces "struck Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure in Beirut and in additional areas in Lebanon”.
In Bshamoun, a mixed town in the Aley region southeast of Beirut, outside of Hezbollah’s traditional strongholds, AFP correspondents saw destruction to an apartment building hit by an Israeli strike.
"There’s nothing left. It’s all burned or destroyed... No walls, the windows are gone, the facade is gone, all my hard work has been lost,” said Abbas Qassem, 55, weeping at the damage to his unoccupied flat near the targeted apartment.
"What have I done to have my home destroyed? I’m just a normal person,” said Qassem, who works for the state telecoms provider.
Lebanon’s health ministry said three people were killed including a three-year-old girl, and reported five others killed in Israeli strikes in south Lebanon.