Can Israel Create A Lebanese Buffer Zone?

CrossFireArabia
Opinion
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

CrossFireArabia

Dr. Marwan Asmar holds a PhD from Leeds University and is a freelance writer specializing on the Middle East. He has worked as a journalist since the early 1990s in Jordan and the Gulf countries, and been widely published, including at Albawaba, Gulf News, Al Ghad, World Press Review and others.

Opinion

Kareem Khan – Chronology of a Scandal: A View From Amman

Saleem Ayoub Quna
July 29, 2026

By Saleem Ayoub Quna

Another somber episode in the ongoing Middle East saga is about to be quietly scrapped by manipulative overt hands and emerging developments, that are no less than disappointing!

The story of the main character of this episode began long time ago in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1970, when a child was born to a dermatologist Scottish mother and a Pakistani father of the same trade!

The child was named Kareem Asad Ahmad Khan, who grew up to educate himself in Law, later to pursue a judicial career, until he landed as top job in The Hague, the Netherland, in 2021, and eventually becoming the Chief Persecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

It was at this juncture that he replaced Ms. Fatou Bensouda, a lady of Gambian origin, who was seeking to investigate the never-ending tragic situation in Gaza and the West Bank under the Israeli military occupation.

Scuffle With Mossad

Bensouda stepped down after 17 years of service at the ICC, including the last nine years as Chief Prosecutor. On her point of departure, she made it clear that the Israeli head of intelligence, Yossi Cohen, met her more than once and told her to drop the charges she was making against Israel’s actions in the two Palestinian territories, but she would not bow, until she officially resigned on 15 June, 2021.

And so since the beginning of his new appointment the new chief prosecutor, and like his predecessor, Khan was charged of continuing to investigate cases, situations and/or individuals suspected of offenses such as genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and aggression, where and whenever, they occurred, whether in Ukraine, Darfur, Belarus, Afghanistan or in Gaza and which indeed become his nightmare, magnified by an Israeli genocide on all accounts that began on 7 October 2023 and lasted for 2 years, 9 months and more, and was declared ‘De Jure’ in October 2025.

No one warned Mr. Khan that he was stepping into a thick minefield, or if they did, he would only listen to his heart and conscience! For that, he must have been bracing for the worse, for himself, and probably for the thousands of war victims he was investigating.

The war in Gaza led to the death and injury of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, (nearly 75,000 dead and more than 200,000 injured), whereas for the Israelis, they suffered 1200 dead and at least over 5000 injured.

So, in May 2024, Khan adopting a “balanced” position despite the flagrant disparity between the two sides on all levels, announced the arrest warrants for five main individuals directly involved in Gaza war: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and the top three leaders in Hamas: Yehya Sinwar, Mohammd Dief and Ismail Haniyeh.

Days after the issuance of these arrest warrants, the name of a certain local female employee (known only as Sarah) suddenly popped up at the ICC, as the alleged victim of sexual harassment at the hands of non-other than the honorable Chief Prosecutor, Kareem Khan!

In an orchestrated follow up, the US Treasury Department in February 2024 imposed sanctions on Khan, after President Donald Trump sanctioned the ICC judges for issuing the said arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Galant.

And in May 2025 Khan stepped down as Chief Prosecutor due to the said allegations of sexual misconduct, and was suspended pending a vote by the state members of the ICC.

In July 2026 Khan was ousted from his post as 82 out of 125 ICC member states voted, in secret, in favor of his dismissal!

As for the Palestinian leaders who were also involved in that war, Israel took things in their hands and ended the life of the three Hamas leaders: Mohammd Deif was killed in Khan Younes on 13 July 2024, Yehya Sinwar killed in the same city on 16 October, 2024 and Ismael Haniyeh was assassinated in faraway Tehran on 31 July, 2024.

The question now is whether the candidate for the Chief Prosecutor post at the ICC, will follow suit in the footsteps of his two predecessors, regarding the unfinished business of atrocities and war crimes around the globe, or will he/she be somebody of a new breed of international prosecutors?

Soon we may have a clue! But personally, I am not optimistic!

Opinion

West Bank: A Ticking Time-Bomb

CrossFireArabia
July 28, 2026

By Ismail Al Sharif

Imagine you are sitting with your children at home when a violent knock shakes the door. You open it to find a blond, European-looking man holding a weapon in one hand and a Torah or Talmud in the other, with soldiers behind him.

He orders you to leave the house, saying: “God gave me this house 3000 years ago.” You reply, “But it’s my home; I was born here, and my father and grandfather were born here before me.”

They push you aside, storm into your house, and throw your furniture outside. Your children cry, they throw your wife out, and your blood boils. You wrest the weapon from the blond man and shoot him. They kill you, and then a bulldozer comes to demolish your house.

The next day, the world’s newspapers headline: “Army kills terrorist after he tried to attack occupation soldiers.”

You might go out in the morning to graze your sheep, and in the distance, you see a few fair-haired young men who have pitched a tent on a fenced-off plot of land on a hill. At first, the scene seems fleeting, but soon you see them approaching your land, wandering among your olive trees and your flock, then attacking you, stealing your livestock, and burning your trees.

After that, they seize part of your land and annex it to the area they have taken over. The fence extends day by day, growing longer and wider. Over time, your land, and the land of your relatives, friends, and all the people of your village, becomes part of the nucleus of a new settlement.

Roads change, streets are closed, and checkpoints are erected, until reaching a place only a few hundred meters away becomes a journey that takes hours.

These scenes are repeated daily in the West Bank, where settlers terrorize, assault, and kill Palestinians under the protection of the occupation army, while ministers from the occupation government appear in the background of these attacks. The goal is clear: To empty the West Bank of its original inhabitants, both Muslims and Christians, and uproot them from their land, paving the way for its seizure and Judaization.

All of this is happening in full view of the world, amidst President Donald Trump’s objections and the condemnation of the international community, at a time when his 20-point peace plan was announced in a celebratory atmosphere on September 29th of last year.

However, time has revealed that this plan was nothing but ink on paper. The occupation continues to control over 60% of the Gaza Strip, demolishing buildings and bulldozing agricultural lands in the areas under its control. It also continues its daily bombardment of the Strip, which, since the plan’s launch, has resulted in the deaths of approximately 1,200 Gazans and injured more than 3,600 others. This is while the siege continues and humanitarian aid is prevented from entering.

As for the West Bank, settlement outposts have expanded, and the occupation government recognized 19 additional settlements after the plan’s launch. This coincides with an unprecedented escalation in settler attacks, the continued demolition of homes and displacement of their residents, as well as the ongoing incursions into Palestinian cities, villages, and refugee camps.

The government of war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu makes no secret of its plans to annex the West Bank and thwart any attempt to establish a Palestinian state, while its leader orders the occupation army to launch continuous military campaigns in West Bank cities, villages, and refugee camps.

The West Bank today sits atop a powder keg, fueled by accumulated feelings of anger, fear, frustration, and resentment, awaiting a spark that could ignite the situation. Then, the sporadic confrontations could transform into a widespread popular uprising, which could very well extend beyond the borders of the West Bank.

No one knows how wide the circle of confrontation might widen, where it might spread, or the extent of the repercussions it might have in Jerusalem, the Palestinian territories within Israel, and neighboring countries. Arab governments and their armies may find themselves facing mounting popular and political pressure, pushing them either to engage in a confrontation they do not want, or to take positions and actions they have long sought to avoid.

This article was originally written in Arabic by Ismail Al Sharif and published in Jordan’s daily newspaper Ad Dustour and is reprinted in crossfirearabia.com. Mr Al Sharif long worked in newspaper management and publishing in Amman.