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Israel announced on Monday that it is expanding its ground in southern Lebanon, claiming to target Hezbollah as Israel\u2019s defense minister pledges that \u201chundreds of thousands\u201d of people already forcibly displaced by Israeli attacks \u201cwill not return\u201d for the indefinite future.<\/p>\n
In a statement,\u00a0Israeli forces said<\/a>\u00a0that soldiers are carrying out \u201climited and targeted ground operations\u201d in southern Lebanon. The purpose is to \u201cestablish and strengthen a forward defensive posture \u2026 to create an additional layer of security for residents of northern Israel,\u201d the statement claims, ignoring that Hezbollah\u00a0has maintained<\/a>\u00a0in previous conflicts that it would not retaliate against Israel if Israeli forces withdrew from southern Lebanon.<\/p>\n Axios\u00a0reported last week that Israel is planning a massive expansion of its ground invasion of Lebanon with the goal of\u00a0seizing the entire area south of the Litani River<\/a>. This area is protected under a UN Security Council resolution as part of a decades-old ceasefire agreement, and makes up\u00a0about 8 percent<\/a>\u00a0of the area of the country.<\/p>\n A\u00a0senior Israeli official told<\/a>\u00a0Axios\u00a0the military is \u201cgoing to do what we did in Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n Israel and Hezbollah reached a ceasefire agreement in late 2024, but\u00a0Israel violated it<\/a>\u00a0over 10,000 times in the first year, UN officials said. Now, Israel has unilaterally ended the ceasefire \u2014 though some argue\u00a0Israel never adhered to it<\/a>\u00a0in the first place \u2014 and severely escalated bombardments and forced displacement in Lebanon, as the world focuses on Israel and the U.S.\u2019s\u00a0horrific war on Iran<\/a>.<\/p>\n In just the past two weeks, Israel has killed\u00a0over 880 people<\/a>\u00a0in Lebanon, including over 100 children and\u00a0dozens of health care workers<\/a>, according to the country\u2019s health ministry.<\/p>\n Israel has\u00a0bombed residences<\/a>, health\u00a0care centers<\/a>,\u00a0and other civilian infrastructure<\/a>, including in the capital of Beirut. The attacks have created\u00a0a \u201chumanitarian catastrophe,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0as one UN official warned, forcing thousands to take shelter\u00a0in makeshift shelters<\/a>\u00a0or on the streets. The UN says that Israel has\u00a0forcibly displaced 800,000 people<\/a>\u00a0thus far.<\/p>\n Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz pledged on Monday to continue Israel\u2019s displacement campaign.<\/p>\n \u201cHundreds of thousands of Shi\u2019ite residents of southern Lebanon who \u200bhave evacuated or are evacuating their homes in southern Lebanon and Beirut will not return to areas south of the Litani line until the safety of northern residents is ensured,\u201d referring to northern Israel, Katz said in a statement.<\/p>\n Reuters\u00a0reports that,\u00a0over the weekend<\/a>, Israeli forces surrounded the key town of Khiam, in southern Lebanon, close to the border of Israel and Syria\u2019s Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.<\/p>\n The town is on a hilltop that\u00a0can oversee<\/a>\u00a0large swaths of the area, and is situated near the choke point where the demarcation of southern Lebanon by the Litani River and the \u201cBlue Line\u201d that establishes Lebanon\u2019s southern border almost meet.\u00a0Analysts say<\/a>\u00a0that Israel could use the town strategically to advance military occupation, potentially using it to cut off communication between parts of the occupied area.<\/p>\n Some residents of Lebanon, already having faced years of bombardments from Israel, say they fear that Israel will carry out an extended occupation like its 18-year occupation of Lebanon that lasted from 1982 to 2000.<\/p>\n