Statement on the Deterioration of the Situation in Lebanon

The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention is deeply concerned by the escalating violence in Lebanon and the credible reports indicating that Israel is preparing to launch a second large-scale military operation in Lebanon framed as an effort to “disarm Hezbollah.” The last war between Hezbollah and Israel officially ended on 27 November 2024 after a devastating 13-month conflict that killed more than 4,000 people and displaced over 1.2 million Lebanese civilians.

Under the November 2024 ceasefire agreement, the Lebanese government committed to preventing Hezbollah and other armed groups from conducting military operations against Israel from Lebanese territory. Israel, in turn, agreed to refrain from offensive operations within Lebanon, including attacks on civilian, military, and state infrastructure. The agreement further required Israel to withdraw fully from southern Lebanon within 60 days, while Hezbollah was to dismantle its military presence south of the Litani River and transfer its weapons to the Lebanese Armed Forces. To oversee implementation of these commitments, a monitoring committee composed of representatives from Lebanon, Israel, the United States, France, and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), was established to monitor and address violations of the ceasefire by both sides.

Since the November 2024 ceasefire agreement, Israeli military operations have not stopped. They have taken on a sustained and normalized pattern, with airstrikes, drone attacks, and artillery fire continuing to strike Lebanese territory on a daily basis. These attacks are not limited to southern Lebanon but also extend to parts of the eastern Bekaa Valley and to Beirut, which has been struck twice since November 2024. What was presented to the international community as a cessation of hostilities has, in practice, become a dangerous illusion: a one sided continuation of hostilities under the banner of a ceasefire.

UNIFIL has recorded thousands of violations of Lebanese sovereignty, including 7,800 airspace violations and nearly 2,500 ground violations north of the Blue Line. Israel justifies its attacks by saying that it is targeting Hezbollah members and facilities, yet civilians continue to bear the brunt of the violence. As of 17 October, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has verified 108 civilian casualties, including 16 children. On 19 November, a particularly deadly strike killed 13 people, all civilians, including 11 children, in the Palestinian camp of Ain el-Héloué, on the outskirts of Saida, according to the UN. Severely weakened by a year-long war that decimated much of its military leadership, Hezbollah has not engaged in retaliatory fire. Four incidents of projectiles of unknown origin fired from Lebanon toward Israel since November 2024 were recorded, none of which resulted in casualties. Hezbollah is not the only armed group operating in south Lebanon. In April 2025, the Lebanese army arrested several suspects, including Hamas-affiliated members for firing rockets toward Israel in two separate incidents. UNIFIL reports no evidence of new Hezbollah military infrastructure being rebuilt, nor of military movements south of the Litani River. Across the country families still live in constant fear that an airstrike could strike near their homes, schools, or workplaces at any moment.

Israeli attacks have also repeatedly targeted UNIFIL personnel. UN Secretary-General António Guterres voiced concern over the “increased frequency” of incidents affecting UN peacekeepers. UN patrols have on several occasions come under fire by the IDF. In the most recent attack, on 10 December 2025, the IDF fired ten-round bursts of machine gun fire above a UNIFIL patrol along the Blue Line close to the village of Sarda in Lebanese territory. A month earlier, fifteen peacekeepers suffered smoke inhalation after the IDF fired several rounds approximately 100 meters from their position. According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), since the ceasefire agreement, there have been only two days per month without attacks. In recent weeks, the frequency of attacks has increased, reaching an average of six airstrikes per day approximately one every four hours. The ceasefire is not simply fragile, it is entirely fictitious.

The ceasefire agreement reaffirmed the provisions of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which required Hezbollah to withdraw from areas south of the Litani River and granted the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) sole authority to deploy troops in southern Lebanon. Israel was expected to fully withdraw from southern Lebanon within an initial 60-day period, which was later extended to February 2025. Ten months later, the IDF is still occupying five positions in Lebanese territory. This prolonged occupation, which Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has stated will remain “indefinitely,” constitutes another direct breach of the ceasefire agreement and prevents the full deployment of the Lebanese Armed forces (LAF) in the areas. Israel claims its continued presence is conditional upon the Lebanese Armed Forces’ (LAF) full implementation of their obligations under the agreement. This argument is however inherently contradictory: the ongoing Israeli military presence itself prevents the full deployment of the Lebanese Armed Forces’ (LAF) across southern Lebanon, directly undermining the very mission Israel claims to be awaiting. The monitoring mechanism chaired by the United States, Israel’s closest ally, has repeatedly enabled Israel to evade its commitments and continue violating international law by turning a blind eye to its actions.

The IDF reportedly stated that its forces will remain in Lebanon “until Israel is certain that Hezbollah will not return to the area south of the Litani River." Evidence on the ground makes it clear that Israel is in fact pursuing the establishment of a de facto buffer zone, in which life is rendered virtually impossible. Beyond the occupied areas, attacks continue to strike surrounding Lebanese villages and increasingly extend to other parts of the country, including Beirut, creating a climate of constant fear and insecurity. This deliberate campaign has made parts of the country, particularly the border villages of southern Lebanon, largely uninhabitable and has sharply increased the cost and difficulty of any future reconstruction. In Aita al-Shahab, a border village previously occupied by the IDF, Israeli forces left behind them total devastation. Aita al-Shahab is now uninhabitable, with 90 percent of its homes destroyed. Aerial imagery shows the village entirely flattened, with no buildings left standing. Even after the ceasefire, Israeli forces continued to shell Aita al-Shahab, systematically destroying any remaining structures.

Reconstruction has itself become a target with construction machinery, prefabricated housing units, and industrial facilities essential to recovery efforts being routinely targeted. Public Works Studio, a Lebanese research and design studio working on issues related to reconstruction, documented at least 46 attacks on vehicles working to remove rubble and clear roads in southern Lebanon, 33 attacks on prefabricated rooms and houses set-up by residents returning to their villages and six attacks on factories in the post-ceasefire period alone.

Between August and October 2025, Human Rights Watch investigated four attacks on reconstruction-related sites. These attacks killed 3 civilians and injured at least 11 people. Human Rights Watch did not find evidence of military targets in and around the sites. Israel has justified these strikes by claiming that bulldozers, excavators, and prefabricated housing units were being used to restore Hezbollah infrastructure. The scale, and consistency of these attacks indicate a deliberate strategy to obstruct all reconstruction efforts in southern Lebanon, far beyond any legitimate military objective. The relentless bombardment has made rebuilding heavily-damaged border villages almost impossible. Over 64,000 people remain displaced, unable to return home, many from border areas that are unsafe or severely damaged. This number is equal to the number of Israelis displaced from northern Israel before the ceasefire agreement.

The Israeli army is not only occupying parts of Lebanon but is also expanding its territorial control. According to recent UNIFIL reports, Israel has built two concrete walls inside Lebanese territory, south of the town of Yaroun in the Bint Jbeil district. These walls stretch across the Blue Line, making over 4,000 square meters of Lebanese land inaccessible to the local population. The Lebanese government condemned the construction as “an infringement on Lebanon's sovereignty and territorial integrity” and lodged a formal complaint with the UN Security Council. In its letter, Lebanon emphasized the right of civilians to return to their border villages, many of which remain “regularly fired upon by Israeli soldiers stationed at illegal outposts on Lebanese territory.”

The occupation is not only exercised on the ground. Drone warfare has transformed its nature. Beyond the five outposts, Israel now projects its control from the air, without boots on the ground yet with the ability to penetrate deeply into the daily lives and private spaces of those below, including through new systems designed to occupy territory remotely. Lebanon has become a testing ground for Israel’s expanding drone warfare. While the constant buzzing of drones was not unfamiliar to Lebanese even before the war, it is now a daily sound audible from the southern border all the way to Beirut. For residents, it has become a terrifying noise, signaling a potential strike, active surveillance, or a form of psychological violence. Many civilians killed and numerous reconstruction efforts targeted have been struck by drones.

In southern towns such as Khiam drones have increasingly taken on policing functions well beyond areas in Lebanon that the IDF's ground forces physically occupy. In one reported case, a drone ordered a driver with tinted windows to roll them down for inspection. In another, a local woman, an interior designer, was instructed to stop walking so that her bag could be searched. Similar to the West Bank these encounters, routinely involving civilians, appear designed to intimidate and to remind people that they are under constant observation and control. The message is clear: Israel can see nearly everything and everyone in South Lebanon.

One particularly alarming incident involved engineer and activist Tarek Mazraani, founder of the Assembly of Residents of Southern Border Localities, a group advocating for reconstruction in the border region. Mazraani was publicly threatened in an audio message broadcast by an Israeli drone, which accused him of collaborating with Hezbollah, and warned others not to associate with him. Mazraani has firmly denied the allegation. Fearing that the building he was living in may be targeted, he fled his village along with forty neighboring families.

Drones have also been used to support human intelligence operations. In one reported case, a drone even escorted a Lebanese spy across the border to meet his handlers inside Israeli territory. Beyond aiding ground operatives, Israeli drones like the Hermes 450 and 900 harvest extensive data across Lebanon. Acting as airborne interceptors, they quietly collect radio, Wi-Fi, GPS, and mobile network signals from the areas they fly over. Combined with artificial intelligence, this information is cross-checked with existing databases, enabling Israeli intelligence to map behavior, track individuals, and target specific locations with exceptional precision.
The push to establish a buffer zone in southern Lebanon appears increasingly aimed at shaping a designated area for the “Trump Economic Zone.” This idea was reportedly raised by U.S. envoy Tom Barrack during meetings between Lebanese officials and a U.S. delegation. While these discussions generated widespread speculation, no official plan has been published, and the details that have emerged remain vague. According to media reports, the initiative is framed as an industrial buffer intended to prevent Hezbollah from re-establishing a military presence near the Israeli border.

In Beirut, however, the proposal is widely perceived as a pretext for reshaping southern Lebanon’s landscape on foreign terms. The fragments of information circulating in diplomatic discussions and media reports closely mirror Israel’s post-Oslo approach in the West Bank, where so-called “economic peace” initiatives offered short-term economic incentives while progressively entrenching Israeli authority on the ground. Under that model, development projects did not empower local communities; they restructured governance arrangements so that Palestinians became administrators within a system over which they exercised little real control.

Much like the so-called “Gaza Riviera” project, this initiative imposes a colonial framework disguised under the language of economic cooperation and development. Applied to Southern Lebanon, a similar framework would mean that residents might be allowed to work in industrial zones but would have no ownership, political authority, or meaningful rights over their land. Reconstruction of destroyed frontline villages would be indefinitely delayed and development would thus occur on the ruins of displaced communities, not for their benefit. An industrial area where a labor force of Lebanese workers enter during the day and which remains empty of residents at night would, in effect, function as a security zone disguised by economic activity. Analysts warn that, if implemented, such an initiative could amount to demographic reengineering, providing cover for displacement while enabling a form of permanent Israeli security control over the area.

In early December, President Joseph Aoun appointed a civilian representative to the U.S.-chaired ceasefire monitoring committee, marking the first time in decades that civilians from Lebanon and Israel participated in direct discussions. Civilian representatives from both sides joined a session in Naqoura, hosted at UNIFIL headquarters, an event widely portrayed in international media as a historic breakthrough and a significant step toward peace. Reports further indicated that the discussions included proposals to advance "economic cooperation" between Lebanon and Israel.

This narrative is profoundly misleading. Less than 24 hours after these talks took place, the Israeli military launched a new round of airstrikes across southern Lebanon. While headlines celebrated the symbolism of “direct talks,” Israeli bombardments of Lebanon received little to no comparable media attention. This imbalance obscures the reality on the ground. These are not genuine negotiations, but an ultimatum imposed through military pressure: Accept the restructuring of southern Lebanon under externally imposed terms, or face the threat of a renewed and devastating war. Economic initiatives advanced in parallel with bombardment are not instruments of peace, they are tools of coercive diplomacy.

The Lemkin Institute condemns all Israeli military operations in Lebanon. We further condemn Israel’s ongoing occupation of Lebanese territory, including the construction of outposts south of the Litani River. We call on Israel to immediately and unconditionally withdraw from all occupied areas in southern Lebanon, in accordance with the ceasefire and United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701.

The Lemkin Institute rejects Israel’s claim that it has the unilateral right to “disarm Hezbollah.” Responsibility for disarmament under the ceasefire agreement rests solely with the Lebanese government. Israel’s preemptive military strikes constitute unlawful uses of force and a clear violation of Lebanese sovereignty. We call on Israel to immediately cease all interference in Lebanon’s internal affairs and to halt actions that undermine the authority and capacity of the Lebanese state.

The Lemkin Institute condemns attacks on civilians, civilian infrastructure, and reconstruction-related efforts. We further condemn the systematic targeting of construction equipment, prefabricated housing, and facilities essential to recovery. These attacks constitute collective punishment and deliberately obstruct the safe and voluntary return of displaced civilians. They violate the fundamental principles of distinction and proportionality under international humanitarian law and may amount to war crimes. Civil defense workers, engineers, humanitarian personnel, and all civilians engaged in reconstruction and recovery efforts must be protected at all times.

The Lemkin Institute calls on Israel to immediately end violations of Lebanese airspace and cease all drone, automated, and remote-control operations. Persistent drone operations extend Israel’s occupation without requiring the physical presence of ground forces, creating control over Lebanese territory through technological means. This mirrors Israel’s control over Gaza prior to 2023, as recognized by the International Court of Justice. These operations inflict severe psychological harm on civilians and appear to be used as a testing ground for new military technologies that further threaten civilian safety and security around the globe.

The Lemkin Institute calls on the international community to unequivocally condemn Israel’s ongoing violations of the ceasefire. We call on all states to take immediate measures to protect civilians in Lebanon, including demanding an end to attacks on civilian areas, infrastructure, and United Nations personnel, and ensuring Israel’s full withdrawal from Lebanese territory. Israel’s allies, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany, bear heightened responsibility to prevent further atrocity risks. These states must suspend military assistance and arms transfers to Israel and impose targeted sanctions on individuals credibly implicated in serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.

The Lemkin Institute calls on the ceasefire monitoring mechanism to fulfill its mandate impartially. The monitoring committee was established to monitor violations by all parties, not solely to assess Lebanese compliance. Its failure to address Israeli violations undermines its credibility and erodes confidence in the ceasefire framework.

The Lemkin Institute urges Lebanese authorities to initiate prompt, independent, and effective investigations into serious international crimes committed on Lebanese territory. We further call on Lebanon to accede to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and to submit a declaration accepting the Court’s jurisdiction retroactively, including for crimes committed since at least 7 October 2023.

Finally, the Lemkin Institute encourages the people of Lebanon to remain united in the face of violence and intimidation. Attempts to fracture Lebanese society through fear and coercion must be firmly rejected. Solidarity across communities is essential to protecting civilians and preventing further cycles of violence.