A journey through South Lebanon reveals people's resolve to resist occupation at any cost

By Julia Kassem

Despite "Israel’s" repeated aggressions and escalating violations, normalization remains responsible, while the people's resistance and resolve persist.

On March 23, the Israeli regime reenacted the Majdal Shams scenario, claiming that an influx of rocket fire from Lebanon was launched by Hezbollah, a claim that the resistance movement flatly denied.

That day, the Tel Aviv regime again unleashed its wrath, killing several people in Tulin and Tyre, south Lebanon, in attacks described unprecedented since the Nov. 2024 ceasefire between the two sides.

As regional tensions reach a boiling point, with the US reaffirming its resolve to act against resistance forces across the region, aggression against Yemen has escalated and the genocidal war on Gaza has resumed.

Yemen has severed the US and Zionist entity’s sea supply routes, Lebanon remains key to Tel Aviv’s hostility due to its geographic proximity, the resistance’s capability to strike deep inside the occupied territories has grown, and the threat of the elite Radwan division storming in from the north to liberate Palestine remains in place.

For these reasons, among others, Lebanon and the elimination of its resistance movement have always been existential priorities for both the US and its proxy Zionist entity.

On February 18, the Zionist entity refused to withdraw from five key points: Al-Labounneh near the Naqoura outskirts, near Jal al-Deir in Aitaroun, near Hamames Hill opposite Metulla (visible from Kfar Kila but south of Khiam), Jabal Blat in Marwahin and Remyeh, and the outskirts between Markaba and Houla.

After the so-called ceasefire deadline—an extension unilaterally demanded by the Zionist entity—these five points were not only declared sites of indefinite occupation, as Israeli war minister Israel Katz arrogantly stated days ago, but also became strategic locations for controlling the roads that connect them.

The objective behind this prolonged occupation is unmistakable: laying the groundwork for a new so-called "security belt" to serve as a launchpad for further illegal expansion into Lebanon, a futile attempt to revert the equation to the days of the 1978 occupation of the country’s south.

Entire roads have been closed off, including the route from Odeisseh to Kfar Kila, the Markaba-Houla roads linking the eastern and western sectors, and the roads leading to Jabal Blat and Naqoura.

The apartheid regime is not merely occupying five isolated points, but it is working to seize an entire stretch of Lebanese territory, carving out a new "buffer zone" that serves as a launchpad for expanded invasion.

While the US has tempered Israeli demands for yet another extension of the so-called ceasefire, it has simultaneously provided the logistical, political, and material support for continued Zionist occupation and coercion.

Exploiting Beirut’s urgent need for economic reconstruction and recovery, the US has tied financial relief to normalization with Israel, using it as a precondition.

This aligns with the vision articulated by US special envoy Steven Whitkoff, who spoke of the "potential" for Syria and Lebanon to enter into normalization agreements with the Tel Aviv regime led by Benjamin Netanyahu.

It also reflects the long-standing strategy, evident in World Bank and IMF policies—particularly in the aftermath of the 2019 economic crisis—of linking Lebanon’s economic recovery to both normalization with the Israeli regime and the disarmament of the resistance.

Meanwhile, routine assassinations targeting civilian vehicles—often killing off-duty Hezbollah movement members going about their daily lives, outside the context of battle—have become more frequent.

Nearly every day since the US delegation’s last visit to Lebanon, deadly drone attacks on vehicles have terrorized local populations.

This relentless and carefully choreographed campaign is yet another demonstration of "Israel’s" unchecked impunity, exercised without restraint in Lebanon.

The appointment of former Lebanese Army commander Joseph Aoun to the presidency—after years of serving the US ambassador—is just one of many steps Washington has taken to tighten its grip on Lebanon, aggressively working to isolate and dismantle the Hezbollah resistance group.

Through economic and political coercion, the Lebanese Army has been stripped of its role as the protector of the state and its people—an ongoing trend that reached new lows during and after the latest war on Lebanon.

The army was instructed not to assist displaced civilians or repair border crossings destroyed by Israel, effectively reducing it to a weakened auxiliary force enforcing American hegemonic mandates in the region.

Now, with a thoroughly compliant president and prime minister in place—Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, who has openly dismissed the slogan “People, Army, Resistance” as "a thing of the past" and declared that “investments will not come to Lebanon as long as there are weapons outside the authority of the state”—Washington's influence over the Lebanese administration is clearer than ever.

Just a week ago, US officials once again toured Lebanon, issuing directives and pressuring the new government for concessions.

It is highly likely that the issue of the five occupied points—alongside the expanding attacks on Lebanese civilians and their hometowns—will be leveraged by the US and Israel to push for long-sought objectives at the negotiating table, including Hezbollah’s disarmament and Lebanon’s normalization with "Israel."

Throughout the so-called ceasefire, the Zionist entity has actively sought to prevent villagers from returning home, killing those who refused to leave and bombing others in their homes.

Meanwhile, Israel and the US are not only waging a deadly counterinsurgency against Hezbollah to secure control over Lebanon’s political landscape but are also attacking any attempts by displaced residents to return and reclaim their villages.

Just as Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza aims to erase all signs of life in the besieged territory, its siege on southern Lebanon operates with the same intent.

Recently, Israeli occupation forces stormed mobile homes where displaced southerners had returned to their villages. Just Tuesday night, makeshift homes, cafes, and shops were bombed and set ablaze by four Israeli Apache helicopter strikes, killing five people and destroying multiple mobile homes.

It is evident that beyond its stated goal of targeting the Lebanese resistance, the Zionist entity is systematically clearing land of its inhabitants and their livelihoods.

Through relentless destruction of infrastructure, mobile homes, and border town businesses, alongside the indiscriminate killing of civilians, "Israel" seeks to solidify its envisioned "buffer zone."

Nonetheless, southerners remain steadfast. In the village of Khiam, where the Zionist entity maintains a shaky military presence at the Hamameh Hills south of the village, residents continue to return—despite the widespread destruction.

As one resident put it, borrowing the words of late Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, “We will proudly pitch our tents under the rubble until our homes are restored, better than before.”

On the same day the Zionist entity attempted to terrorize locals with additional drone strikes and attacks on vehicles, residents of Khiam gathered for their annual community iftar, a tradition they have upheld for three years in breaking their Ramadan fast together.

Amidst the rubble, locals displayed photographs of fallen resistance martyrs, including Sayyed Nasrallah, lining the massive rows of tables and chairs with messages of steadfastness and pride, honoring the sacrifices of their heroes.

“This gathering of local families strengthens our resilience, defiance, and determination against the Israeli enemy lurking on our borders,” one Khiam resident said.

“They won’t be here for long. This is our land. We are the people of this land, and no one can take it from us.”

Despite the material losses suffered by the resistance and the immense suffering inflicted upon the region, the Israeli regime continues to sink deeper into its own internal crises and contradictions.

It has failed to achieve its stated objectives of crushing the resistance groups, which still maintain the upper hand in their demands and negotiations in both Gaza and Lebanon.

The illegitimate entity its unable to return its settlers to the north of Occupied Palestine or to the settlements surrounding Gaza, and no amount of assassinating leaders can salvage its deepening leadership crisis.

Even Barak Ravid, a former Israeli intelligence officer and writer for the US intelligence-linked platform Axios, admitted that the Zionist entity deliberately collapsed its own agreement—one it never intended to implement—to “force Hamas into an alternative agreement.”

The deepening fractures within the Zionist entity amid the genocidal war on Gaza, the widening rift between the Netanyahu/Ben Gvir/Smotrich camp and the Gallant camp, and the growing discontent among the settler population are just a few testaments to the fragility of the entity.

Despite all the destruction it has inflicted, it remains, to quote the iconic Lebanese resistance leader, “weaker than a spider’s web.”

Julia Kassem is a Beirut-based writer and commentator, whose work appears in Press TV, Al-Akhbar, and Al-Mayadeen English, among others.

(The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV.)

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