Despite the newly mounted Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire, the IDF will continue to attack fighters of the Lebanese terror group who have remained in the southern part of the country should they not surrender, the IDF said on Friday. The statement by the IDF was the first aggressive interpretation of the limits of the ceasefire put out by any senior Israeli official. In addition, IDF sources for the first time gave the unambiguous official commitment that the military will remain in southern Lebanon indefinitely, and view the Litani River as the new security line with Hezbollah, unless the terror group agrees to disarm.
Although Israeli political officials had started to take such a stance in recent weeks, the IDF has been slower to adopt such a consequential long-standing view, given that it could mean that the military may get stuck in a new Lebanese quagmire for years. In spite of the pessimistic scenario, the IDF had some potential optimism for the current Israeli-Lebanese negotiations, given that Hezbollah is considered even weaker than after the fall 2024 ceasefire.
This is because Hezbollah has lost another 1,700 fighters, another 5,800 rocket launchers, has generally lost another 10-20% of its pre-2023 power (around another 60% of its post-fall 2024 power), and may have much less capacity to rebuild if Iran's economy, its main source of funding, is as shattered as reports indicate. Separately on Friday, the IDF revealed explicitly for the first time that the security cabinet and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held them back from multiple instances where they had wished to initiate an earlier major operation against Hezbollah. (Read More)
