IDF BEGINS NEW GROUND INCURSION IN LEBANON, seizes high ground to prevent Hezbollah fire at northern Israel

Peloni:  The borderline with Lebanon needs to be extended northwards.  The active and continued threat from Hezbollah attacks has been demonstrated to be real and ongoing, and internationally imposed ceasefires have simultaneously failed to mature into anything more than a pause between missile barrages without Hezbollah surrendering a single rifle or rocket, demonstrating that peaceful conditions are not possible under the current arrangement.

IDF kills Iranian Quds Force commander leading Hezbollah’s rearmament

All Israel News Staff | Published: March 3, 2026

Hezbollah Command Center attacked. March 3, 2026Hezbollah Command Center attacked. March 3, 2026. Screengrab via Youtube

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) entered Lebanese territory on Tuesday, in an operation aimed at seizing high ground that could be used by Hezbollah to fire on Israeli communities.

The new operation followed the entry of Hezbollah into the war on Monday, when it fired rockets and drones at northern Israel as a reaction to the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, who was the group’s biggest backer and spiritual leader.

Defense Minister Israel Katz stated Tuesday morning that he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “authorized the IDF to advance and take control of additional strategic high ground in Lebanon in order to prevent fire toward Israeli border communities.”

The Israeli operation follows the dramatic statement by the Lebanese government, which outlawed Hezbollah’s military activities in the country.

Israeli army officials had stated repeatedly in recent days that the decision to evacuate northern Israel after Hezbollah attacked on Oct. 8, 2023, was a mistake that would not be repeated.

The IDF operation is aimed at preventing another situation where terrorists can fire down into Israeli towns from the higher hills on the Lebanese side of the border, as had happened for nearly two years in 2023-24.

“To prevent the possibility of direct-line fire at Israeli communities, the Prime Minister and I have approved the IDF’s advance to seize additional commanding terrain in Lebanon and defend the border communities from there. We promised security for the Galilee communities — and that is what we will deliver,” Katz affirmed.

The IDF said in a statement that “IDF soldiers are operating in southern Lebanon and are positioned at several points near the border area as part of an enhanced forward defense posture.”

Following the ceasefire with Hezbollah at the end of 2024, IDF soldiers continued to hold five strategic points on the Lebanese border. Now, the Israeli military apparently seized additional territory.

On Monday, the IDF had called on residents of some 50 villages, most of them in southern Lebanon, to evacuate.

In January, the Lebanese army had declared southern Lebanon to be empty of any Hezbollah presence, claiming to have established its full control over the area. On Tuesday, troops of the Lebanese Armed Forces vacated dozens of posts across southern Lebanon, according to Lebanese media reports, amid the advance of Israeli troops into the area.

This followed reports that Lebanese President Joseph Aoun ordered the army to avoid clashes with the IDF, noting he didn’t want to endanger the lives of his soldiers over the decision of Hezbollah to drag the country into a war with Israel.

“The IDF is working to create an additional layer of security for residents of northern Israel. The IDF is conducting targeted strikes against Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure in order to remove threats and prevent infiltration attempts into Israeli territory,” the IDF statement added.

“The Hezbollah terrorist organization chose to attack Israel on behalf of the Iranian regime, and it will bear the consequences of its actions. The IDF will not allow harm to Israeli civilians and will continue to act to defend the State of Israel and its citizens.”

Ahead of the ground incursion, the Israeli Air Force conducted large waves of airstrikes against Hezbollah targets across Lebanon, striking its propaganda outlets, banking system, and terror commanders.

As part of these strikes, the Israeli Navy eliminated Reza Khazaei, head of Hezbollah’s weapons build-up and the Chief of Staff of the Lebanon Corps in the Iranian Quds Force.

Khazaei “was considered a key actor in the buildup of Hezbollah’s capabilities. He was responsible for the communication between the Hezbollah terrorist organization and the Iranian regime, in particular, ensuring that Iranian supplies met the needs of Hezbollah,” the IDF said.

He led the build-up of “the military capability and equipment of Hezbollah and the implementation of the capacity-building plans and rehabilitation” of Hezbollah after its degradation by Israel, by advancing weapon smuggling programs and overseeing the group’s weapons manufacturing programs on Lebanese soil.

The IDF also killed the commander of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the Lebanon sector, Abu Hamza Rami, in Beirut. The IDF said Rami was a veteran terrorist responsible for “hundreds of terrorist attacks against IDF troops and Israeli civilians.”

“Recently, Rami continued to advance numerous terrorist attacks on behalf of the organization from within Lebanon, including training Nukhba terrorists, recruiting terrorists, and procuring weapons,” the IDF said, and also took part in operations against Israel during the war against Hezbollah in 2024.

“His elimination constitutes a severe degradation of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s ability to carry out terror operations against the State of Israel and its citizens. The IDF will continue to operate to thwart any threat posed to the State of Israel,” the IDF said.

Meanwhile, the military also said it intercepted two drones launched at Israel by Hezbollah early in the morning. Later Tuesday, the terror group launched additional drone attacks in northern Israel.

March 3, 2026 | 2 Comments »

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  1. “Northern Front Heating Up: Why Israel Needs to Reach the Litani River

    While much of the world’s attention remains focused on the confrontation with Iran, Israel’s northern border is quietly heating up. For days now, the Israeli Air Force has been striking Hezbollah positions across southern Lebanon and deep inside Beirut, where the terror organization deliberately embedded its military infrastructure beneath civilian buildings, exploiting what it sees as Israel’s Western moral Achilles’ heel.

    But today, following a recent security assessment, the IDF Chief of Staff ordered ground reinforcements to the Northern Command, including transferring the Golani Brigade combat team from the southern front to the north.

    This is not a routine move.

    It reflects growing concern in Israel’s defense establishment that Hezbollah may significantly escalate its attacks as the jihadi Islamic Iranian regime finds itself increasingly cornered.

    Israeli intelligence assesses that the longer the war continues, and the more clearly both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump speak about dismantling Iran’s regime, the more pressure Tehran is placing on Hezbollah to intensify the fight against Israel.

    The Tehran–Beirut axis is deeply worried.

    Inside Iran, the regime is facing severe internal tensions, all while discussions are already underway about preparing for the next stage of the conflict, potentially including mass protests in Iranian streets.

    In this atmosphere of uncertainty, Iran’s leadership is pushing Hezbollah to escalate the northern front in order to relieve pressure on Tehran.

    Israel’s military planners understand the danger.
    And they are preparing accordingly.

    As Hezbollah increases its aggression along the border, more and more Israelis, including politicians across the political spectrum, are beginning to openly call for Israel to push north and secure the area up to the Litani River in southern Lebanon to remain there forever.

    The logic is simple.

    Hezbollah has spent decades building a massive terrorist army in southern Lebanon, embedding rocket launchers and missile infrastructure inside civilian villages only a few kilometers, and sometimes hundreds of meters away, from Israel’s northern communities.

    No international agreements, ceasefires or forces stopped the Hezbollah danger to Israel, over decades of trying.

    If Israel once again pulls back, out of Southern Lebanon, after this war, then jihadi forces will return to endanger the lives of millions of Israeli citizens.

    The Litani River, located roughly 30 kilometers north of the current border, has long been viewed by Israeli security planners as the only geographic line capable of creating a meaningful buffer against Hezbollah or any jihadi enemy threat.

    But what most Israelis do not realize is that this idea is not new.

    In fact, it goes back to the very founding vision of the Jewish state.

    In 1919, at the end of World War I, Zionist leaders were already thinking carefully about what the borders of a future Jewish homeland should be.

    David Ben-Gurion and Chaim Weizmann, who later became the first Prime Minister and President of Israel, helped present a memorandum to the Paris Peace Conference, where the victorious Allied powers were determining the future political map of the Middle East after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

    The Zionist memorandum presented argued that the northern border of the future Jewish state should extend up to the Litani River in southern Lebanon.

    Their reasoning was both historical, practical and strategic.

    Historically, Jewish communities had lived in parts of that region in ancient times.

    However, what many people don’t realize is that at the end of the end of the 19th century, beginning of the 20th century, Jewish organizations like the JNF, and private buyers had already purchased land in several areas of southern Lebanon, then known as Southern Syria (because Lebanon was only created in 1920) including near Marjayoun, Hasbaya, and villages just north of Metula.

    Zionist planners were especially interested in these regions not only because of their historical connection to the Jewish people, but because of their strategic geographic importance.

    But when the British–French border agreement of 1923 finalized the boundary between Mandatory Palestine and Lebanon, most of those lands were placed outside the Jewish national home, leaving Israel with a far more vulnerable northern frontier than many of the early Zionist leaders had envisioned.

    Ben-Gurion understood the geographic realities of the land.

    The Litani River formed the only natural defensive barrier capable of protecting Israel’s northern frontier.

    Without that line, the narrow strip of land between Lebanon’s mountains and Israel’s Galilee leaves Israeli communities dangerously exposed.

    History has unfortunately proven his point.

    For decades, Hezbollah has transformed southern Lebanon into a heavily fortified terror army base, acting as Iran’s frontline military outpost—stockpiling rockets, building tunnels, and embedding its war machine inside villages to prepare for the day Tehran hopes to destroy Israel.

    UN resolutions have come and gone.
    Diplomatic agreements have failed.
    International UNIFIL forces acted to protect Hezbollah!

    And Hezbollah has only grown stronger over the years.

    Which is why the conversation inside Israel is changing.

    Increasingly, Israelis understand that returning to the fragile status quo along the existing northern border would simply guarantee the next war.

    If Hezbollah continues escalating while Iran grows more desperate, Israel must not only push Hezbollah’s terror army north of the Litani River, but push Israel’s border up to Litani River, as the only way to prevent southern Lebanon from ever again serving as a jihadi launching pad against Israel.

    For Tehran, escalating Hezbollah attacks is a logical move.

    If the Iranian regime feels the pressure of the war tightening around it, opening a wider northern front against Israel could serve several purposes.

    It could distract Israel from the Iranian front.
    It could create international pressure for a ceasefire.
    And it could signal to the region that Iran’s “axis of resistance” still has teeth.

    But such a move carries enormous risks.

    Israel has repeatedly warned that if Hezbollah launches a full-scale war, the response would be devastating, not only for Hezbollah but for the infrastructure supporting it across Lebanon.

    For now, Israel is reinforcing the north while continuing its broader strategic campaign against the Iranian regime.

    But the direction of events is becoming clearer.

    The longer Iran’s regime feels the pressure closing in, the more it will try to ignite the region around it.

    And if that happens, hopefully, Israelis may soon implement the strategic insight that David Ben-Gurion understood more than a century ago:
    The security of Israel’s northern frontier requires Israel’s northern border to reach at least the Litani River.

    Today’s southern Lebanon lies within the ancient tribal territories of Dan and Naftali. Reality is reminding us why Jewish sovereignty there was always understood as essential, not only because it is part of our biblical inheritance from God, but because those lands provide the geographic security needed to protect Israel’s northern frontier.”

    Ardie Geldman

    https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0uF7PWnWASRpxrGQxsMv77iw71U2PSWeMhbzzEtsX1TgVUV6f5LCgPG9fHKQFxk4Hl&id=545522241

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  2. I would guess Israel again clears all civilians out of everything below Litani River and at least for tying being moves the border to there. However, Israel will now after finishing the IRGC along with the USA will complete the job on the Hezis.