When the 60-day period set in the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire announcement elapsed, and before the announcement that the period would be extended to February 18, Israel had already explicitly declared that it did not intend to withdraw from the border villages, thereby turning its temporary presence into a bona fide occupation.
During this period, the ceasefire announcement witnessed continuous breaches by Israel, including prohibiting people from returning to their villages, continued systematic detonation and destruction of areas to which the Israeli army had advanced during the fighting or by exploiting the truce, aerial violations, ground incursions, abductions, and bombardment using various kinds of weapons.
These attacks were accompanied by a series of measures and threats that violate the terms of the agreement and undermine the declared truce under the pretext of “self-defense” and “removing threats”. These acts constitute breaches of the announcement and are, in essence, a continuation of the aggression, indicating that the Israelis are acting as an occupying power in Southern Lebanon.
These measures include issuing frequent warnings prohibiting inhabitants of the region south of the Litani River from moving about in vast areas. They also include prohibiting residents from returning to 70 villages that lie south of a line that begins in Shebaa in eastern Lebanon and ends at the Mediterranean Sea about 14 km from the Blue Line, passing through the area south of the Litani and roughly paralleling the Litani River.
Based on the ceasefire announcement and UN Security Council Resolution 1701, the Israeli army was supposed to immediately cease all military operations against Lebanon and commit to gradually withdrawing behind the Blue Line over 60 days. However, the Legal Agenda continuously observed and documented, using all journalistic tools available, violations that contradict this commitment.
With the end of the third and final phase of this period on 26 January 2025, and having already published two reports covering the previous phases, the Legal Agenda is publishing a report on the Israeli attacks from January 6 to 25. We are also including totals for the breaches across the entire period.
Our methodology for documenting Israel’s breaches was based on a preliminary count of cases reported in open sources, which we cross-checked against lists obtained from Lebanese military sources. We also identified the location, time, and number of victims of each breach via fieldwork, communication with the people concerned, and statements from various security and official parties, including UNIFIL, the Lebanese Army, the Ministry of Health, Civil Defense agencies, and municipalities.
This documentation covers ground and aerial attacks, which have a direct cost for civilians in the targeted areas. It does not encompass all breaches. For example, exclusions include the many spy plane flights and maritime violations, which the military source told us “total almost 2,000, although no official tally is available yet”. Hence, the following report distinguishes between “breaches” and “attacks”, even though they all constitute violations of Lebanese sovereignty and breaches of the ceasefire agreement’s text.
During the final twenty days of the period set by the ceasefire announcement, the Legal Agenda documented 358 Israeli attacks, in contrast to 209 during the second phase and 288 during the first phase. Thus, the tally of documented Israeli attacks throughout the truce period climbed to 855.
We documented the deaths of nine people during the third phase. Eight of them were martyred by aerial bombings and one by direct fire. The total number of martyrs during the truce period thereby rose to 43, including three families, with their women and children, and government officials and medics.
On January 10, an airstrike in Tayr Debba martyred five and wounded four residents of that village and neighboring villages. Three Turkish youths were also killed when their car was targeted in the Jabal Sedane area on the outskirts of Shebaa. Emergency aid teams managed to recover their bodies on January 20.
On January 22, Lebanese citizen Muhammad Termos, from the village of Talloussah, was found martyred. Israeli soldiers had fired upon his car near the Wadi Saluki mosque on the outskirts of the town of Majdal Selm while he was trying to reach his town, according to his family’s testimonies. A medical source told us that Termos had been directly hit by bullets throughout his body.
On 29 December 2024, Red Cross teams discovered Najma Ghasham (75 years old), who had been killed in her home in Yaroun. A source in the Red Cross told us that several attempts to reach her were made before they managed to enter the village on the 29th. The source said that she appeared to have died recently. The medical examination revealed that she had been hit by four bullets and had several broken bones. During the ten days preceding the discovery of Ghasham’s body, the village witnessed seven detonation operations. Israeli soldiers had made an incursion into the village to rig homes with explosives, according to the Legal Agenda’s documentation.
We documented 47 Israeli ground incursions. These operations occurred repeatedly in Wadi Saluki, and they struck the outskirts of Bint Jbeil for the first time on January 15 and were repeated there over the following days. They also struck Kfar Shouba on January 25, even though the Lebanese army had entered the town and returned to its positions there. Every Israeli incursion was accompanied by shooting and extensive destruction of private and public property and infrastructure in the targeted villages.
There were 14 incursions during the first phase in the border region and 20 during the second phase. They encompassed areas that the Israeli forces had been unable to reach during the fighting.
Attacks via artillery bombing and indiscriminate or targeted shooting, which totaled 25 and 38 respectively, demonstrate the continuation of aggressive military operations against the villages and the continuous expansion of the danger zone for the remaining and returning residents. The artillery bombings reached the vicinity of the Civil Defense center in the village of Rmaish, damaging many Civil Defense vehicles and a civilian car, in addition to splintering a home in the Kurum neighborhood.
Among the gravest attacks were the abductions of citizens and residents in six separate incidents during the third phase of the ceasefire. Thirty people, most of them farmers and livestock herders, were abducted. The Legal Agenda verified three cases of citizens being abducted during the first phase and the abduction of four people during the second phase.
There were also 14 cases of homes being raided and their contents vandalized, and there were three separate documented attacks in which civilian cars and vehicles were deliberately crushed by tanks or destroyed by bulldozers. There were also two waves of threatening phone calls on the last day before the withdrawal deadline, which demonstrates the use of psychological warfare tactics against residents.
Exploiting the Withdrawal Period to Continue Detonating Villages
Detonating and bulldozing remained the most frequent and destructive violations, with 148 operations in 17 villages. During these operations, entire villages were turned into rubble in an attempt to permanently reshape the border’s geography. This pattern of attacks increased during the third phase of the truce and encompassed 24 villages. There were 45 detonating operations during the first phase and 95 during the second phase, encompassing 23 border villages. By targeting infrastructure, residential neighborhoods, homes, and agricultural and forest lands, these operations reflect a broad strategy aimed at changing the geography and demographics of the border region.
In Khiam, a town into which the Israeli forces forayed during the truce even though they had been unable to take control of it during the fighting, we observed an escalation in detonation and bulldozing operations as the withdrawal date drew near. On the day of the withdrawal, the Israeli forces carried out their final detonation operations in Khiam and began an incursion into Naqoura. The Legal Agenda published a detailed investigation titled “Naqoura Destroyed During Truce: The Latest Evidence of the Crime of Detonating Villages”,[1] which showed how these operations raised the percentage of the buildings destroyed in the town from 32% to 90% and almost completely destroyed its infrastructure.
It is perfectly clear that the detonation and bulldozing operations, which systematically erase the villages’ landmarks, demolish their neighborhoods, dismantle their infrastructure, and level their agricultural and forest lands, constitute a reprisal against the villages and their residents and, as such, a goal in and of itself for the Israeli forces. This is because they occurred after the ceasefire and not as a side effect of the fighting (even if they began under the cover of it), and because they have escalated in the villages from which the date for withdrawal is approaching.
A total of 282 detonation and bulldozing operations occurred throughout the whole period, encompassing 34 villages and the regions of Wadi Saluki and Wadi al-Hujeir. More than half of these operations occurred during the final 20 days. The arson of homes also escalated, totaling 33 documented incidents between January 5 and 25, in contrast to seven during the first and second phases. This reflects a desire to cause as much destruction as possible.
The detonation and bulldozing operations during the third phase were concentrated in Meiss El Jabal and Ayta al-Shaab. However, these operations were also distributed along the border from Naqoura, where the last ones were carried out the day the Israeli army withdrew from Naqoura’s interior (January 6) to Kfar Shouba, even though the Lebanese army returned to the town on January 25.
The detonation, bulldozing, and arson operations encompassed many homes, residential and governmental buildings, commercial, industrial, and agricultural institutions, and tourist resorts, as well as mosques (as in Shihin and Wadi Saluki) and the cemetery of the village of Dhayra, which has been almost completely destroyed.
All the tourist resorts along the banks of the Wazzani River were destroyed in a single detonation operation two days before the withdrawal deadline. Similarly, Israeli bulldozers demolished industrial facilities and destroyed the old “mini-football” field in the Dabsh area west of Meiss El Jabal on January 20.
Industrial and agricultural facilities were destroyed in Meiss El Jabal, and on January 22, the Israeli forces made an incursion into Borj El Mlouk and burned down a storehouse belonging to the company JNE. Company owner and Borj El Mlouk Municipality president Elie Sleiman estimated the value of the losses to be approximately USD400,000.
The detonation and bulldozing operations encompassed the historic neighborhoods of the villages, and trees in the Yaroun forest were bulldozed for four days in a row. Vast swathes of perennial olive groves were destroyed, and the vandalism of agricultural lands continued until the final hours of the 60th day.
The 60th Day
During the 60 days of truce, the Israeli forces not only prohibited people from returning to their homes but also left them with nothing to return to. The Legal Agenda’s methodological documentation of these attacks confirms that they were not incidental occurrences but part of a systematic strategy aimed at permanently reshaping the border region’s geography and demographics. This strategy is about not just establishing military control but also inflicting long-term impact on the local communities subjected to forced displacement and destruction.
As the period set by the terms of the ceasefire ended, and against the backdrop of Israel’s explicit announcement that it was not withdrawing, the attacks were topped off with a threat directed by the Israeli army’s spokesperson at residents seeking to return. The inhabitants’ return was not originally contingent on the Israeli forces’ withdrawal, but the attacks had prevented it. The ceasefire announcement explicitly stipulated that residents could return as soon as it came into effect at 4:00 AM on 27 October 2024.
January 25 witnessed the return of threatening phone calls warning citizens against returning to their villages, with two waves of calls targeting people displaced from villages in the Marjayoun and Nabatieh districts. A person speaking broken Arabic told the inhabitants not to return to their villages on Sunday, warning them that their safety would be at risk.
On the same day, the Legal Agenda documented 19 incidents of ground incursions and roads being severed and bulldozed. Towns such as Meiss El Jabal, Talloussah, and Bani Haiyyan were isolated when the main roads and side streets leading to them were bulldozed and closed. This occurred after inhabitants declared their intent to head to their villages the following day despite the threats.
Also on January 25, an operation detonating homes was carried out in Kfar Shouba, a town to which some inhabitants had returned after the Lebanese army’s return. Khiam, too, was subjected to such attacks during the third phase even though the army had returned to it.
These aggressive actions paint a picture of Israel’s intentions against the villages and their inhabitants during the coming phase. Meanwhile, Israeli forces have established positions in several areas along the border and finished constructing a stronghold on the strategic Awida hill between the towns of Taybeh and Odaisseh. With the elapse of the deadline, a new chapter in the story of Southern Lebanon and its border villages is beginning.
The “Self-Defense” Excuse
This investigation clearly shows that the Israeli breaches are not just incidental or isolated incidents but a continuous pattern that reflects a deliberate strategy with two objectives. The first is to undermine any chance of true stability and a return to normal life in Southern Lebanon. The second is to entrench a long-term status quo all along the border region whereby the incursions and detonations continue and their effects persist even after the Israeli forces withdraw in accordance with the ceasefire announcement.
Repeated statements by Israeli military spokespersons suggest that Israel is trying to portray its breaches and attacks as part of the “implementation of the agreement”, “self-defense”, or measures to “remove threats to Israel and its citizens” while constantly claiming to be complying with the ceasefire understandings. These statements allude to a supposed right to “freedom of action” not stipulated in the ceasefire announcement, which – to the contrary – emphasizes Lebanon’s sovereignty and the official Lebanese forces’ exclusive obligation to implement the agreement on Lebanese territory.
The documented facts strongly refute Israel’s claims. The evidence indicates that Israel’s actions have not been in response to a direct military attack from Lebanon.
This article is an edited translation from Arabic.
[1] Hussein Chaabane, “al-Naqura Dummirat fi Hudna: Akhir al-Adilla ‘ala Jarimat Nasf al-Qura”, The Legal Agenda, 9 January 2025.