On Tuesday, The Jerusalem Post embedded with the IDF for a visit to both Naqoura and an IDF position in the Ras al-Bayada region, reaching around 10 kilometers deep into southern Lebanon, all on the coast. 

Most of what the Post saw on this dreary and rainy trip showed heavily destroyed villages along the way – a feature of Hezbollah keeping weapons in most houses in the majority of these villages, said IDF senior sources.

Despite that picture, IDF officials said that Christian villages, like Alma a-Shaab, have been left intact, since Hezbollah did not set up positions or store weapons there.

That means that Christian Lebanese civilians should be able to return to their homes standing when the current conflict is resolved.

The area is under the control of IDF Division 146, commanded by Brig. Gen. Beni Aharon, with two of his senior commanders being Col. Aviel Balachsan, commander of the 226 Paratroopers Reservist Brigade, and Lt. Col. Lior, commander of Battalion 9.

The Jerusalem Post’s Yonah Jeremy Bob with the IDF in Lebanon. (CREDIT: YONAH JEREMY BOB) IDF soldiers are being wounded on a nearly daily basis

For almost a week after the April 17 ceasefire, the IDF and Hezbollah overwhelmingly limited friction between the sides.

However, as Iran and the US started to fight more in the Strait of Hormuz, the Lebanese government started to hold public meetings with Israel, and the IDF continued to hunt down Hezbollah fighters in parts of southern Lebanon under its control, Hezbollah started to attack Israeli northern towns again, and escalated its attacks on IDF soldiers.

If the IDF had hoped, as a senior IDF source put it, that the ceasefire would only apply north of the Litani River and within Israel, but not in southern Lebanon in between the two, Hezbollah was not having it.

Further, if the IDF believed that Hezbollah was so desperate to avoid attacks in Beirut that it would turn the other cheek from other attacks, and also would not be able to seriously threaten IDF soldiers in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese terror group’s use of FPV drones has shown that it can, unfortunately, charge a heavy price.

So with the IDF driving Hezbollah out of or killing its small groups of remaining fighters in Naqoura, Ras al-Bayada, and other parts of southern Lebanon, what does “the ceasefire, which is not a ceasefire,” as one IDF official put it on Tuesday, look like?

First, Balachsan is proud that the IDF is cutting off any possibility of Hezbollah invading or firing anti-tank missiles on northern Israel.

Another senior IDF officer pointed out that even a week before the April 17 ceasefire kicked in, Hezbollah lost the capacity to fire short-range rockets and mortars on northern Israel from this coastal region due to IDF forces having already taken apart any of their organized attack positions.

Senior IDF officials added that not only have they temporarily halted rocket fire from the area, but they have also seized several hundred Hezbollah rockets, meaning that even if at some distant point in the future, the military withdraws, the Lebanese terror group has permanently lost a certain volume of rockets.    

In addition, senior IDF officials complimented the navy on its joint work, including multiple missions which have been publicized where Israeli commandos swept in behind Hezbollah enemy lines coming in from the coast.

These moves were coordinated specifically with Division 146 and, at times, with Division 162, which handled the various coastal areas.

However, Divisions 162 and 98 have mostly withdrawn from southern Lebanon, given that the area is already in Israeli hands, leaving Division 146 with sole responsibility for the coastal area.

Divisions 91 and 36 are still operating in other parts of southern Lebanon.

Although there have been reports that each division was only around a brigade or so strong, given the shifting divisions, Division 146 now commands three brigades, including brigades 300 and 401, in addition to 226.

Moreover, Division 146 has installed new radars and other sensors deep into southern Lebanon and all the way up to the Litani River, which gives the military distinct advantages in tracking and anticipating Hezbollah threats, even those that come in from North of the Litani.

Senior IDF officials further revealed that Division 91 is undertaking various pilot technological attempts to better combat Hezbollah’s enhanced drone threat, using FPVs, which have been causing IDF soldiers to be wounded on a nearly daily basis.

They expressed optimism about eventual progress, but there was no sense that the military had an immediate capability to halt Hezbollah’s “success” in that area.

In terms of the safety of IDF forces, the Post received a concrete reminder during the visit of how close it was to the front lines.

Although Hezbollah has now been pushed too far back to have a range to fire anti-tank missiles on northern Israel (it can still hit northern Israel with long-range rockets), the terror group still fires anti-tank missiles on nearby IDF forces.

This was important because in one early week of the war, 25-30 advanced anti-tank Kornet missiles showered IDF forces in the area.

This caught some IDF tank and other vehicle drivers by surprise when the IDF Trophy anti-tank defense system had to be used more than they were used to, and sometimes, even after its use, there were indirect hits on their vehicles, leaving them shaken.

Shortly before the Post and other media were about to leave the Ras al-Bayada region to return to Israel, suddenly IDF soldiers ordered everyone either to rush into our armored Tigris vehicles or into the nearby house due to what they thought was an imminent drone attack.