How Israel’s ‘Yellow Line’ is reshaping southern Lebanon

Demolished homes, shifting military lines, stalled withdrawals leave Lebanese uncertain if they can return.

Beirut, Lebanon – Ali is from Khiam, a Lebanese village on the southern border with Israel, but for the last few months he has rented a house in Hasbaiyya, about a half-hour drive away to the northeast. He is one of tens of thousands of Lebanese who have been displaced from their homes in villages throughout the south of the country.

Despite a framework agreement between Lebanon and Israel signed in June – with the objective of securing Israel’s phased withdrawal from Lebanon – Israel has continued to occupy large parts of its neighbour’s south, where it has systematically demolished homes and infrastructure in dozens of villages.

The Lebanese Shia group Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel on March 2, for the first time in more than a year. The Iranian-backed group said the attack was a response to daily Israeli violations of the November 2024 ceasefire and the assassination two days prior of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, at the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran.

Yet the Lebanese government continued with the discussions, which eventually resulted in the framework agreement. One element of the agreement was the establishment of “pilot zones”, from which Israel would withdraw and be replaced by the Lebanese Armed Forces, who would then disarm any Hezbollah forces in the area.

“Israel’s primary goals were to empty, depopulate, and make those dozens of frontline villages and towns uninhabitable, and we’ve seen that now with the satellite imagery,” Mohamad Bazzi, a New York-based political analyst originally from Bint Jbeil in southern Lebanon, told Al Jazeera. “It was a way of applying that Gaza model to Lebanon.”

“Unlike previous occupations, the Israeli goal this time has been to empty those towns and villages of their residents, push them out, destroy as much of the housing and infrastructure as possible, and to make it extremely difficult if not impossible for people to return to their homes,” he said, adding that most of the destruction of the towns had occurred since April, despite several announcements of ceasefires.

On the northern side of the Yellow Line, residents have returned to devastated villages, including a couple of towns included in the “pilot zone” programme.

“We were surprised that it was [included as a] pilot zone,” Hasan Bazzi, the president of Froun’s municipal office, told Al Jazeera.

The Yellow Line is not the only coloured line used in Lebanon to reference military demarcations. The Blue Line was established in 2000 in the wake of the end of Israel’s years-long occupation of southern Lebanon, with Israeli forces withdrawing behind it.