Extract from ABC News
Smoke rises following an explosion in a Lebanese town. (Reuters: Florion Goga)
Israel and Lebanon are set to meet for further negotiations later this week as the 10-day ceasefire with Hezbollah enters its second half.
But while talks of what comes next take place, experts say Israel's continued presence in south Lebanon is creating a "bleak" future.
The Israeli military is now occupying a belt of territory at the border between the two countries — telling residents to stay out, while continuing to destroy infrastructure inside many villages.
And come next week, regardless of the outcome of the negotiations, experts believe Lebanon will be facing a "new reality" in the south that it did not want.
Israel's occupation and new 'Yellow Line'
On Sunday the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) released a map highlighting a large area hugging the border in southern Lebanon which it said would remain under its control for the duration of the ceasefire.
The map shows an area stretching east to west along the entire border, running between five and 10 kilometres deep into Lebanese territory and covering about 560 square kilometres — or about 5.5 per cent of Lebanon's land.
The IDF has called the boundary its "Forward Defense Line" and the area a "buffer zone" where it said troops would work to "dismantle Hezbollah terror infrastructure sites and to prevent direct threats to communities in northern Israel".
But it has also called it Lebanon's "Yellow Line", a term it used to describe the ceasefire border in Gaza.
Michael Young, a senior editor at the Malcolm H Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, said the boundary represented the current front line with Hezbollah, but likely not its final form.
"For the moment this is a temporary line. I think the Israelis will try gradually to establish a line that is more defensible, that isn't a line that was imposed on them by a ceasefire," he said.
Beyond the occupied area, Mr Young argued Israel may seek to exert a level of control in other parts of the south where it could fire freely and "act when they want".
"I don't think the Israelis will ever give up on their ability to strike targets inside Lebanon,"he said.
Late last week Hezbollah indicated it was willing to abide by the ceasefire so long as it included a "comprehensive halt to attacks" across Lebanon and "no freedom of movement for Israeli forces".
But after the IDF released the map of its new "security zone" Hezbollah said it would fight to "bring down" the line.
"The attempt by the Israeli army to establish a buffer zone, under the title of a defensive line, a yellow line, a green line, and a red line … all these lines will be broken, and we will not accept any of them," Hezbollah politician Hassan Fadlallah told AFP overnight, vowing that "no-one in Lebanon or abroad will be able to disarm the resistance".
The IDF said it had already attacked "terrorists in several areas" for approaching Israeli forces from north of the Yellow Line, adding that its actions were in self-defence and therefore did not violate the new ceasefire.
Another statement from the IDF said, "At this stage, Lebanese civilians are not yet permitted to return to southern Lebanon."
Israel's stated "buffer zone" also stretches out to sea and carves up a portion of Lebanon's exclusive economic zone which contains potential gas fields.
While analysts say it is a worrying aspect of the occupation, it does not affect the maritime border agreed between Lebanon and Israel in 2022.
"From a legal point of view, this map doesn't change anything about the fact that there is a maritime border agreement," Lebanese Energy Minister Joe Saddi told Reuters.
"Very simply, the agreement is in effect and nothing is changing."
Destruction in southern Lebanon
South of the Yellow Line the IDF has already begun destruction in some of the dozens of villages that were told to evacuate earlier in the war.
"There is a ceasefire now, but they're still blowing up houses," Adnan Alyan, the former mayor of the Shia Muslim-majority town of Khiam told the ABC.
Mr Alyan currently resides in Lebanon's capital, Beirut, but his family home in Khiam was destroyed at the beginning of the war.
"They go in, they blow up the entire neighbourhood, 30 or 40 houses, they bomb them all together," he said.
"They're bombing every day, everywhere in the south. They created a belt and they're bombing them all."
Ali Hassan Khalil, a top aide to Lebanon's Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, said Israel has carried out varying degrees of destruction in 39 villages during the ceasefire, including destroying civilian homes.
He said this amounted to "a clear war crime".
The IDF said its operations targeted Hezbollah infrastructure, but sources told Haaretz that civilian infrastructure — including homes, public buildings and schools — were being flattened, and a BBC analysis of satellite imagery showed complete villages destroyed.
Earlier this week Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the destruction of houses along the border would continue despite the ceasefire, saying without providing evidence that they had "effectively become terrorist outposts".
"Israel is implementing a strategy in Lebanon reminiscent of its tactics in Gaza," Sibylle Rizk, a Lebanese analyst and journalist, told the ABC.
"The systematic destruction of occupied localities signals an intent for a prolonged occupation aimed at minimising Israeli casualties from Hezbollah's guerilla operations."
She said the IDF was "opting for a 'scorched earth' approach" rather than risking "urban combat on a terrain mastered by" Hezbollah.
"For Lebanon, the cost of this new occupation, following the 1978–2000 period [during which Israel occupied parts of southern Lebanon], is an unbearable burden for the southern population," she said.
The IDF has claimed Hezbollah embeds military infrastructure and assets, including weapons, inside civilian areas and homes.
It also told BBC News it did not destroy property unless militarily necessary.
Christian villages also face 'crisis'
Israel's destruction operations have so far largely focused on Shia Muslim towns where there is support for Hezbollah.
Southern Lebanon is also home to several Christian villages which have mostly been left intact and where some residents have remained during the war.
But their future is also in doubt.
Over the weekend a photo emerged showing an Israeli soldier taking the blunt side of an axe to a fallen sculpture of Jesus on the cross in the Christian town of Debel.
An Israeli soldier damages the head of a statue of Jesus, in Debel. (Social Media via Reuters)
The soldier's actions were strongly condemned by both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the IDF, which said the soldier's conduct was "wholly inconsistent with the values expected of its troops".
The cross was part of a small shrine in the garden of a family living on the edge of the village, local priest Fadi Falfel told Reuters.
He called it a "desecration of our holy symbols".
"We have every kind of crisis," he said.
"We thought the ceasefire would bring us some relief but we're still surrounded, unable to travel to and from the town. There are some houses on the edge of town that we're barred from accessing."
While some Christian residents fear their villages could be destroyed if they leave, Mr Young says Israel's current strategy is to leave them alone and use their presence for its advantage.
"If people in [the Christian village of] Ramesh don't want their village to be destroyed then eventually any kind of activity by Hezbollah could be opposed by the people of the village because it could potentially threaten them," he said.
"The Israelis are pitting the communities against each other. This is very simple."
The IDF told BBC News that any suggestion it was punishing civilian communities or targeting civilians on the basis of religion was "categorically false".
'Bleak' future for Lebanon
Representatives of Israel and Lebanon will meet in Washington DC on Thursday to discuss a more permanent peace treaty.
But Lebanon, which found itself dragged into the war in early March when Hezbollah opened fire over the Israeli border in support of Iran, is negotiating from a weaker position.
Analyst Sybille Rizk said that Lebanon was trying to negotiate a Hezbollah disarmament following a full Israeli withdrawal, while the US and Israel hinge a withdrawal on Hezbollah's disarmament.
"To prevail at the negotiating table Lebanon desperately needs allies to act as a counterweight to both Israel's military pressure and Iran's heightened control over Hezbollah's strategic decisions", Ms Rizk said.
"Without a diplomatic breakthrough ensuring a full withdrawal and a massive international reconstruction plan, these villages risk becoming a permanent, depopulated 'no-man's land' effectively severed from the Lebanese state and its economy."
She added that the maritime boundary was also under threat because it was "inextricably linked to the coastal land terminus" and with the occupation.
"Israel is effectively laying claim to a portion of Lebanon's maritime zone, which is potentially rich in hydrocarbons," she said.
"While Lebanon has international law on its side, Israel is asserting the logic of force. This remains a pivotal issue for any future settlement."
Mr Young said Lebanon was being forced to negotiate because it "wants to liberate its territory".
"But at the same time what will be negotiated between the sides will be determined by what the Israelis want to do with their occupation zone," he said.
More than 800,000 Lebanese have been displaced from the south during the current war, according to the UN, and most are not being allowed to return.
At least 2,300 people have been killed, including 117 children, as crews search for the remains of others.
Hezbollah has not disclosed its casualty figures, but at least 400 of its fighters had been killed by the end of March, according to sources.
Israel said two civilians were killed in Israel during Hezbollah's initial attack when the Iran war broke out, while 15 Israeli soldiers have died in Lebanon since March 2.
Mr Young believes that Israel is trying to create a "a new reality" by forcing a pre-determined outcome on the negotiations through its occupation of Lebanon's south.
"I see that the future of these villages is very bleak," he said.
"The Israelis want to create a sentiment that this [buffer zone] is a permanent structure and that … if one day they eventually withdraw, that these areas will still remain under Israel's eye.
"Israel wants to seek to impose the new reality, the new arrangements for habitation of this area."
Hopes that the 'south will be rebuilt'
Israel has yet to say when or if it will leave southern Lebanon, but in a video statement earlier this week Mr Netanyahu said Israeli troops intended to remain in the area during the ceasefire.
"We are staying in Lebanon in a reinforced security zone," he said, adding: "We are not leaving."
Mr Katz also said earlier this week that the IDF was not planning to withdraw from Lebanon any time soon.
"The IDF holds and will continue to hold all the areas it has cleared and captured," he said.
An Israeli flag flies on top of a damaged building in Lebanese territory as heavy machinery operates amid rubble. (Reuters: Florion Goga)
The security of civilians in northern Israel, an area which is often targeted by Hezbollah rockets when fighting breaks out, remains Israel's "top priority", the IDF said in a recent statement.
But the occupation, Ms Rizk argues, "constitutes a flagrant violation of international law and Lebanon's territorial integrity, regardless of Israel's security justifications."
"The central challenge for Lebanese authorities is defending a sovereignty they cannot enforce on the ground," she said.
As the question of Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon remains up in the air, former Khiam mayor Adnan Alyan remains hopeful that the "south will be rebuilt".
"God willing, everyone will return. They will retreat again and the entire south will be rebuilt,"he said.
"It's all worth the sacrifice for the resistance and Lebanon, but the most important thing is our dignity to stay intact."
