The pilot program for IDF withdrawals from portions of southern Lebanon while waiting to see whether the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) can properly remove Hezbollah will initially focus on the zone between the Yellow Line and the Litani River, Defense Minister Israel Katz said Monday.
Israel would not completely withdraw from any of its security zones in Lebanon, Syria, or Gaza, he said he told CENTCOM Commander Adm. Brad Cooper during a meeting on Friday.
In other words, Katz said there were three main potential stages to the negotiations with the Lebanese government about IDF withdrawals from southern Lebanon: the current pilot program in which any withdrawals will be limited to areas deep into southern Lebanon; a potential next stage of withdrawals from other parts of southern Lebanon if Hezbollah is kept out of the initial areas taken over by the LAF; and a third stage in which the IDF maintains some kind of limited security zone inside southern Lebanon.
It was premature to discuss where that final security zone would be, i.e., a return to the five outposts that Israel held several hundred meters past the border from February 2025 to February 2026, or whether it would be a large security zone, he said during a briefing with military reporters.
Currently, there are 2,500 Hezbollah terrorists in southern Lebanon who need to be cleared out, Katz said.
1,300 terrorists north of Litani River, south of Zahrani River
There were about 1,200 terrorists south of the Litani River, in various specific spots a few kilometers away from the border, and another 1,300 are north of the Litani River, but still south of the Zahrani River, which is considered part of southern Lebanon, although it is the northernmost part, he said.
Nearly 100% of the villages in the central and western areas of southern Lebanon near the border had been destroyed after Hezbollah weapons were found, Katz said.
In contrast, about 73% of Lebanese villages near the border in the eastern areas of southern Lebanon had been destroyed based on the volume of Hezbollah weapons found in them, he said, adding that these statistics pertained to 24 villages, he said.
There were still dozens of villages farther north in parts of southern Lebanon that have not been destroyed, and some where the IDF has not entered, Katz said.
This means that out of the 1.3 million Lebanese who have evacuated from southern Lebanon, Beirut, and other areas at the height of the war, most of them may be able to return to their villages eventually, but an estimated 200,000 might have nothing to return to.
This is a much higher volume of cleaning out villages of weapons, including destroying them, than occurred in the fall of 2024.
Despite Katz’s assurances, he had no clear answer about what would happen if the US and Israel disagreed about whether the LAF was doing a sufficient job of clearing out Hezbollah terrorists from southern Lebanon. In that scenario, Washington could potentially say the job was sufficient, while Israel could disagree.
In fact, in early 2025, Israel wanted to hold more Lebanese territory for longer, but it was pressed by the US into withdrawing to the five outposts it has held since then.
Katz also reduced expectations for a full disarmament of Hezbollah anytime in the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, Israel’s positions on security issues with Lebanon would be at least partially dictated by the aspiration to reach that goal, he said.