Israel's Yellow Line Redraws Southern Lebanon

Beirut, Lebanon – Ali is originally from Khiam, a village on Lebanon's southern border with Israel, but for months he has been renting a home in Hasbaiyya, about a half-hour drive to the northeast. He is one of tens of thousands of Lebanese who have been forced to flee their homes in villages across the country's south.

"The people of the south are living through a tragedy," Ali, who did not want to give his full name, told Al Jazeera. "It all stems from mistaken tragedies and a failed politics."

Despite a framework agreement signed between Lebanon and Israel in June aimed at ensuring a scheduled Israeli withdrawal, Israel continues to occupy large parts of its neighbor's southern territory, where its military has systematically destroyed homes and infrastructure in dozens of villages.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has previously said his country's forces will not withdraw from Lebanon, hinting at a prolonged occupation similar to Israel's earlier 22-year occupation.

'A hard boundary'

Lebanon's Shia Hezbollah group fired rockets at Israel on March 2, the first time in more than a year. The Iran-backed group said the attack was a response to Israel's daily violations of the November 2024 ceasefire and to the assassination of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei two days earlier, at the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran.

Israel responded by escalating the war in Lebanon for the second time in less than two years. Israel's attacks and its re-invasion of southern Lebanon displaced more than 1.2 million people. Beirut then entered direct, US-mediated negotiations with the Israeli government, despite the opposition of Hezbollah, which has fought Israel since October 2023. The group traces its origins to the 1980s as a resistance force against the occupation of Lebanese territory.

Nevertheless, the Lebanese government continued the talks, eventually leading to the framework agreement. One element of the deal was the establishment of "pilot zones" where Israel would withdraw and be replaced by the Lebanese Armed Forces, which would then disarm any Hezbollah forces in the area.

Israel now occupies a zone reaching as far as 10 km into southern Lebanon. Behind the "Yellow Line" marking the end of that occupied zone, Israel continues to blow up homes. Israel also uses the term "Yellow Line" to refer to areas it controls in Gaza.

"Israel's main objectives are to empty out, depopulate and render uninhabitable those dozens of frontline towns and villages, and now we've seen that through satellite imagery," Mohamad Bazzi, a political analyst based in New York who is originally from Bint Jbeil in southern Lebanon, told Al Jazeera. "That is the way the Gaza model is applied to Lebanon."

Around 50 frontline villages, including places such as Khiam and Bint Jbeil, have been destroyed.

"Unlike previous occupations, this time Israel's goal is to empty the towns and villages of their residents, push them out, destroy as much housing and infrastructure as possible, and make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for people to return home," he said, noting that much of the destruction of the towns has taken place since April, despite repeated ceasefire announcements.

"[The Yellow Line] is treated as a hard boundary, both in terms of military presence and the controlled destruction of villages, which continues nonstop despite the ceasefire," Ahmad Baydoun, a Lebanese architect and open-source researcher based in the Netherlands, told Al Jazeera. "It's as if the ceasefire applies to the rest of Lebanon but not to this territory."

North of the Yellow Line, residents have returned to shattered villages, including a few towns included in the "pilot zone" program.

One of those towns is Froun, where the Israeli military destroyed homes through airstrikes and drone attacks but did not send in ground troops.

"We were surprised that this place was included in the [list of] pilot zones," Hasan Bazzi, head of the Froun municipal authority's office, told Al Jazeera.

Lines of many colors

The Yellow Line is not the only colored boundary used in Lebanon to mark military demarcations. The Blue Line was established in 2000 after Israel ended years of occupation in southern Lebanon, with Israeli forces withdrawing behind it.

Israeli officials are now also discussing creating a "Gray Line." Reports suggest it could reach 4 km into Lebanese territory. The area behind the Gray Line would remain uninhabited, effectively serving as a buffer zone for Israel where Lebanese civilians would not be allowed to rebuild their homes.

"Part of Israel's strategy with the Gray Line, the Blue Line, the Yellow Line is to sow ambiguity and to hide or blur the reality of what Israel has done on the ground [that is] depopulating this large swath of Lebanese territory and making it uninhabitable," analyst Bazzi said. "Ultimately, the definitions of these lines don't really matter because they change constantly. We've seen that happen in Gaza, and the core issue is that Israel is illegally occupying, illegally destroying and ethnically cleansing a large part of southern Lebanon, while much of the world stays silent about what has happened."

But even in the area of the Yellow Line controlled by Israel, some village residents have stayed, reflecting Israel's effort to exploit sectarian divisions in Lebanon. Most of southern Lebanon's population is Shia Muslim, but officials in non-Shia areas say they have received warnings not to take in displaced people in their towns. Even those allowed to stay do not live in full freedom.

"The villages Israel allows to remain inhabited inside the Yellow Line are mostly Christian and Sunni villages," Baydoun explained. "But being allowed to stay is not the same as being free to live. In Kfarchouba, municipal employees were kidnapped while pumping water for the village, and the mayor himself was detained. Even in Deir Mimas, a village outside the Yellow Line, the Lebanese army set up a post so farmers could reach their olive groves, only for Israeli tanks to advance to the village entrance in confrontation."

Baydoun described the new reality in southern Lebanon as "the West Bank-ization of those who remain," referring to Israel's occupation of the West Bank.

"Residents are allowed to exist on their land but not to use it freely," he said. "Access to fields depends on checkpoints, coordination and the mood of a patrol. Municipal officials are detained and interrogated at will. It is a model of control that does not require emptying a village to rule it."

The permanence of displacement

Analysts say the occupation of southern Lebanon could drag on for the foreseeable future. The Lebanese government has pledged to build prefabricated homes in some areas, but it may struggle to provide state services such as water, electricity and sewage treatment in places where infrastructure has been extensively damaged or destroyed.

Even if Israel withdraws, much of the border area will remain in complete ruin, with dust, rubble and ash where homes and fertile farmland once stood.

"There are some towns that could come back if there is a significant effort, but with around 50 frontline towns or villages, I don't think that is feasible in the short or medium term," Bazzi said.

For many people in the south, this is an open wound, as they are forced to continue their lives elsewhere while their homes and land lie in rubble and under occupation. For them, Israel's military occupation is reshaping southern Lebanon for the next generation.

"Khiam is destroyed, nothing is left, this place will be uninhabitable for the next 10, 15, 20 years," said Ali, who had to leave his home in Khiam. "They have pushed us back to the Stone Age."