Will Israel's troops take over more of southern Lebanon?
Locals displaced from southern Lebanese towns and cities on evacuation orders from Israel's military now fear Israel will occupy their homes permanently, or continue to
Locals displaced from southern Lebanese towns and cities on evacuation orders from Israel's military now fear Israel will occupy their homes permanently, or continue to expand its invasion. The Israeli army has now told locals in Tyre several times that they should evacuate the southern Lebanese city, previously home to over 100,000 people as well as around 10,000 displaced from surrounding areas. But her father and other members of her family are staying, says Lily, a community worker from Tyre. Lily, who didn't want to give her full name for security reasons, is now living with friends in the Lebanese capital Beirut. But when she can, the 29-year-old returns to Tyre to deliver medicine and food. "Tyre is a ghost town," she tells DW. Since early March, ongoing Israeli aerial attacks have seen successive waves of locals leave. Drone and artillery attacks on Tyre are continuing this week, with Israel saying it is targeting the Lebanese militant group despite the new ceasefire between Iran and Israel. "Three weeks ago, you had one pharmacy opening here every two or three days, then closing for security," Lily continues. "There are some grocery shops open but you can count them on one hand. And it's hard to get supplies in. Nobody wants to come to Tyre by road because it's risky." Israeli forces continue their advance into southern Lebanon To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Never-ending anxiety Sometimes the Israeli military warns it will target a certain building, Lily says, "but then they actually hit four buildings. Or the building they warn about won't be hit for a week. So, there's no specific timing and it keeps everybody anxious as they don't know what's happening." Other times, Israeli forces won't even warn of a strike, she adds. On Sunday, a historic family home belonging to a close friend, located near an area in Tyre classified by UNESCO as a world heritage site, was completely destroyed. "There was no warning but luckily, there was nobody there," Lily said, adding that her friend, a 32-year-old who previously volunteered with the Red Cross, had actually been in the process of moving to France for a new job.
The main casualties were a dozen cats the family had been taking care of. "She's devastated," Lily says. "We're all devastated. And we're asking why. Because, you know, there were no military targets there. Unless cats are now considered military targets." On June 7, Israeli bombardment damaged a World Heritage site (pictured) in Lebanon's southern city of Tyre, news agency AFP reported Image: Kawnat Haju/AFP Some of the other questions Lily says a lot of people in southern Lebanon are asking are: whether they will ever be able to return to their homes, how long Israeli armed forces will stay in their country, and whether the army might even push further into Lebanon. In March, Israel's defense minister Israel Katz said locals won't be able to return to southern Lebanon until "the safety and security of northern Israeli residents are guaranteed." Israel has marked a "yellow line" in southern Lebanon it says marks a security buffer zone set up to protect its citizens from attacks by Hezbollah. The line is about 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the border. But there have been reports of Israeli soldiers operating beyond the yellow line and Lebanon's Litani river, for the first time since 2006. Besides Tyre, Israel also recently issued evacuation orders for another southern city, Nabatieh, which is also beyond the yellow line. 'Shift from limited border defense' At the end of May, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he wanted troops to "deepen and expand" their hold on Lebanese terrain. The Israeli government has previously stated it wants "freedom of operation" in Lebanon, although experts say this mostly refers to air strikes. All this signals "a shift from limited border defense to a strategy of territorial control and deterrence," experts at the US-based risk consultancy, the Institute for Applied Geopolitics, argued in a June briefing. "The operation's scale and symbolism evoke Israel's 1982 occupation, suggesting a potential reestablishment of a long-term security zone." In fact, Israeli armed forces have not even gone that deep into Lebanon, counters Yossi Kuperwasser, head of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security and a former chief of the Israeli army's research division.
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