CrossFireArabia, Author at CrossFireArarbia

Can Israel Create A Lebanese Buffer Zone?

CrossFireArabia
March 25, 2026

By Imad Rizk

Since last Wednesday, the Israeli army has continued targeting the network of roads and bridges that link Lebanon to its south. In addition to pressuring the Lebanese government to make concessions in Lebanon and possibly beyond, the Israeli army claimed that targeting the Qasmiyeh bridge and other bridges is intended to prevent the transfer of military supplies to southern Lebanon. However, military experts questioned this justification, noting that Israeli aircraft maintain intense air dominance over the routes leading to the south, which undermines the credibility of this claim. Sources believe that targeting infrastructure, especially bridges and roads, aims to isolate the southern region in preparation for occupying it and turning it into a “buffer zone”.

After the 1982 invasion, Israel maintained a buffer zone in southern Lebanon for 15 years. It was meant to prevent attacks but instead created local resistance and required constant military presence, ending with a unilateral Israeli withdrawal in 2000.

Buffer zones as a military solution in the region were tested between 1985 and 2000. In the 2006 Lebanon War, Israel avoided re-occupying Lebanon, relying instead on air power and UN peacekeepers (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon). Now, in 2026, Israel is returning to buffer zone thinking. Current discussions of a 10-15 km buffer zone show that Israel is returning to a doctrine it once abandoned as distancing itself from its enemy is more important than before.

Meanwhile, air raids continue to target the Lebanese capital, Beirut, and its southern suburbs. Residential areas and neighborhoods near Beirut and in the coastal city of Sidon are also being targeted under the pretext of assassinating figures and cadres linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

On the southern front, the Israeli army has been facing major difficulties in advancing and consolidating its positions since March 2. Hezbollah in Lebanon targeted Israeli troops at dozens of locations.

Ground combat tactics against the Israeli ground maneuver

Hezbollah carried out strikes against concentrations of soldiers and vehicles in different border villages. These attacks were carried out using rockets and artillery shells.

Operations extended beyond the border line, where Hezbollah support units targeted military positions and fixed barracks, as well as newly established sites in Jabal al-Bat and Nimer al-Jamal. Strikes also repeatedly hit the Avivim barracks, as well as Ramot Naftali, Branit, Hounin, Nahal Gershom base, and the Meron Air Surveillance Base.

Both Hezbollah and the Israeli army also carried out psychological and media operations associated with the ground maneuver, including threats, intimidation, low-altitude aircraft flights, and air raids conducted at night or at dawn. Settlers were also used in messaging to suggest that failure to negotiate would expose Lebanon to destruction similar to Gaza, or to incite Lebanese public opinion against a particular sectarian group and the environment that supports confrontation with Israel.

Overall assessment

In summary, the ongoing confrontation since March 2 reveals a gap between Israeli rhetoric and action. Despite statements about deploying three full military divisions, these forces rely heavily on air strikes to flush out Hezbollah fighters positioned inside villages and in the surrounding wooded terrain.

Hezbollah initially responded by targeting troop concentrations with rockets from outside the area south of the Litani River in the early days, and also struck D-9 bulldozers from areas far from the front line, while its special units advanced and seized forward positions. There was also discussion of advances along the Khiam-Marjayoun axis, with the understanding that the advance aimed to encircle the city of Nabatieh in the south and push through the Sahmar axis toward an unspecified town to reach Lake Qaraoun, similar to what Israel did on the Syrian front when it took control of the Yarmouk basin.

A notable development was the use of explosive drones similar to tactics used in Ukraine. On Friday, armed drones were used to strike a rear-area position on the Israeli side. This was considered the second major tactical surprise to enter the battlefield after the previous confrontation in 2024 during the “66-day battle.”

Israeli attacks on Iran and the entry of Iranian missiles targeting Israeli troop concentrations and fortifications around the town of Khiam suggest that the linkage of fronts — from southern Lebanon to Iraq and Iran — indicates that the Khatam al-Anbiya headquarters in Iran is directing a confrontation against Israeli destabilization and US military presence across a theater stretching from the eastern Mediterranean to the Gulf.

The author is the director of the Institute for Strategic and Communication Studies in Lebanon (Isticharia-ISCS). Anadolu

News

Iran Struck Israel With 1200 Missiles Since 28 February

CrossFireArabia
March 20, 2026

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported, Friday, that Tehran and Hezbollah fired approximately 1,200 rockets at Israel in retaliation for Tel Aviv’s aggression against both Iran and Lebanon.

Since February 28, Israel and the United States conducted airstrikes against Iran, killing at least 1,332 people, including 202 children, 223 women, and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, in addition to injuring more than 15,000 and causing widespread destruction.

Since March 2, Israel has also been waging an offensive against Lebanon, resulting in 1,001 deaths, 2,584 injuries, and 1,049,328 displaced persons, according to Lebanese authorities.

The newspaper stated Iran increased its use of cluster munitions in the third week of the war, with 15 of these rockets successfully dispersing bombs within Israeli airspace, mostly in the central part of the country.

It added: “In total, over the past 20 days, Iran has launched 26 cluster munitions, causing damage to at least 150 sites, including this week two train and bus stations and three parked planes at Ben Gurion Airport.”

Iran has been bombarding Israel with at least 10 missiles a day, totaling approximately 400 missiles, while the Israeli army said that about 340 missiles have been fired at Israel, according to the newspaper.

It added that the army refuses to provide the exact number of missiles, but reported earlier this week that during the first 15 days, Iran launched about 340 missiles, and “since then, no updated data has been provided.”

Haaretz stated that “since Hezbollah joined the war, it has attacked Israel, especially its north, with about 800 missiles in dozens of attacks daily.”

The US-Israeli aggression against Iran resulted in at least 1,332 deaths, including 202 children, 223 women, and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, in addition to more than 15,000 injuries and widespread destruction.

Meanwhile, the response from Tehran and its ally Hezbollah in Israel left at least 17 dead and 4,099 wounded, in addition to Iranian attacks that killed 13 US service members and injured 200.

Iran is being subjected to aggression despite making progress in negotiations with the United States regarding its nuclear program. This is the second time Israel has reneged on the negotiating table; the first time was the outbreak of the June 2015 war as reported by Anadolu.

News

Eid Mubarak Gaza

CrossFireArabia
March 20, 2026

Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are marking the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, the first since the so-called ceasefire began, amid widespread suffering and destruction following two years of Israeli genocide.

Across the enclave, Palestinians performed Eid prayers amid the rubble, in a powerful act of steadfastness and resilience, and children tried to find moments of joy.

Uncategorized

US-Israel Drags The World Into a Global Crisis

CrossFireArabia
March 20, 2026

By Abdel Bari Atwan

By bombing Iran’s Pars gas field, the world’s largest with missiles, and with a green light from President Donald Trump, the Israeli occupation state and its right-wing ruling clique is revealing a major, diabolical plan. Its goal is to drag the world into a massive economic crisis on all levels, starting with an energy crisis that may be even more dangerous than the Arab oil embargo of 1973, in solidarity with Egypt and Syria, leading to a wider global conflict.

This Israeli bombing of Iran’s South Pars gas field, which came after the third week of the war and the failure of the US-Israeli alliance to topple the Iranian regime, constitutes the most significant breach of red lines and will have very serious and dangerous consequences in this war. Gas prices have already risen by 36 percent today, while the price of a barrel of oil has reached $118 so far. These figures may triple, if not more, if Iran retaliates by bombing energy facilities in the Gulf, especially in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and Kuwait. It is an option that is not out of the question, given the threats issued by the new leadership, which states that the “oil and gas sites in neighboring countries have become direct and legitimate targets after the bombing of the South Pars field.”

***

By taking this step—bombing the South Pars gas field facilities—the Israeli army has shifted the conflict from a realm of threatening maritime routes, primarily the Strait of Hormuz, to targeting production infrastructure. This is a very dangerous shift if it escalates and will lead to an expansion of the scope of this war and its objectives and reflects the despair and frustration Israel is experiencing due to its failure to achieve its objectives in waging this war, and rallying the western world behind Trump’s leadership whilst trapping it in the Iranian snare, and seeking to eliminate the existential threat to its survival, namely Iran and the resistance factions it supports.

Iran managed this war with unprecedented political and military acumen. The developments of the first three weeks demonstrated that it was well-prepared for all eventualities according to a well-devised plan. The most prominent evidence of this was its deception of the occupying state and its generals when it used older-generation missiles to absorb and deplete Israel’s air defenses. Then, it delivered the decisive blow by bombarding major occupied Palestinian cities with advanced, hypersonic cluster missiles, turning Tel Aviv, Haifa, Acre, and Safed into ghost towns.

***

The “decapitation” theory, which Israel used as a successful formula for regime change and collapse, exemplified by the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was thwarted by Iranian ingenuity, yielding the opposite results. The Iranian regime emerged stronger than before the assassination war, now led by a young figurehead, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, the new Supreme Leader. His first decree was to refuse negotiations with the US to halt the killings unless it fully submitted to Iranian demands, including surrender, a cessation of hostilities, and the payment of reparations.

The lack of response from NATO, and indeed from not a single country Trump appealed to for intervention and the deployment of warships to forcibly reopen the Strait of Hormuz—from China to Australia—underscores his and his Israeli allies’ early defeat in this war and signals the beginning of the countdown to his removal from power, and perhaps even his trial as a war criminal. Time will tell.

This op/ed by the the Chief Editor of Al Rai Al Youm was translated from Arabic and reprinted in crossfirearabia.com.

News

ESCWA: The War Costs $150 Billion in Losses

CrossFireArabia
March 20, 2026

In an ESCWA report titled “Conflict and its shockwaves: escalation of a crisis in the Arab region” and released on 19 March, it points out if the US-Israel-Iran war continues for one month it would causes have losses for the Arab region amounting to nearly $150 billion, or 3.7% of regional GDP.

ESCWA, a major UN organization, warns that the conflict has causes much economic losses with preliminary estimates of about $63 billion in just two two weeks, pointing out the shock is being transmitted through energy markets, trade routes, aviation networks and financial systems.

It added shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has fallen by 97%, with disrupted cargo flows valued at about $2.4 billion a day and cumulative trade losses estimated at around $30 billion over two weeks. Between 28 February and 12 March, almost 19,000 flights were cancelled across nine major regional airports, generating an estimated $1.9 billion in airline revenue losses.

“The findings show that the economic effects of the conflict are materialising quickly and across multiple channels at once,” said Mourad Wahba, Executive Secretary of ESCWA. “What begins as a security escalation is being transmitted into the regional economy through trade, energy, transport and finance, with direct consequences for growth, fiscal stability and humanitarian pressures.”

ESCWA said the region entered the crisis with limited room to absorb a prolonged shock. Even before the latest escalation, around 210 million people, or 43% of the region’s population, were living in conflict-affected settings, including 82 million people in need of humanitarian assistance. In 2025, GCC countries provided about $4.4 billion in humanitarian aid, accounting for roughly 43% of total aid received by conflict-affected countries in the region.

The burden is likely to fall particularly heavily on energy-importing economies. At an oil price of $100 a barrel, the additional annual import bill for Egypt, Lebanon and Tunisia would rise by about $6.8 billion compared with 2026 budget assumptions, adding to fiscal pressure in countries already facing constrained public finances.

Lebanon is facing some of the gravest immediate consequences. ESCWA notes that recent escalation that erupted on 2 March took violence by Israel at a new and more intense levels. If escalating strikes continue, economic losses could rise sharply as attacks increasingly disrupt infrastructure, trade and essential services. These shocks hit an economy that has already contracted by nearly 40% since 2019. The latest escalation has also caused severe humanitarian strain, with 634 people killed as of 11 March and nearly one million displaced.

“The concern is not only the scale of the immediate losses, but the way in which they interact with pre-existing structural vulnerabilities in the region,” Wahba added. “For countries with limited fiscal space, high import dependence or significant humanitarian pressures, a prolonged conflict could exceed their capacity to absorb further shocks, with serious implications for economic stability, social cohesion, and humanitarian condition.”

The ESCWA brief assesses the impact of the conflict through a scenario-based framework covering macroeconomic losses, energy markets, maritime trade, aviation disruptions, financial shocks and Lebanon’s direct exposure to the conflict.

About ESCWA: One of five United Nations regional commissions, ESCWA supports inclusive and sustainable economic and social development in Arab States and works on enhancing regional integration.