Israel widens southern Lebanon buffer zone

Netanyahu says decision aims to strengthen security

TYRE, LEBANON:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he had instructed the military to further expand the existing security buffer zone in southern Lebanon, vowing to fundamentally change the security situation there.

"I have just instructed to further expand the existing security buffer zone. We are determined to fundamentally change the situation in the north [of Israel]," Netanyahu said in a video statement from the Northern Command on Sunday, pushing forward his country's stated bid to replicate the "Gaza model" of occupation.

Netanyahu said the decision aimed to strengthen Israel's security posture along the northern frontier, amid ongoing tensions along Israel's northern border, where cross-border hostilities have raised fears of a broader regional escalation.

It was reported that fighting between Hezbollah and Israel in southern Lebanon had intensified. Israeli troops reached a tributary of the Litani River south of the town of Qantara, on the eastern front near al-Muhaysibat.

At least 1,238 people have been killed since Lebanon was dragged into the war on March 2, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry.

The death toll includes 124 children, while more than 3,500 people have been wounded, the ministry said in a statement. On Saturday and Sunday alone, 49 people were killed, including 10 rescue workers and three journalists.

The United Nations says that more than 1.2 million people have been displaced.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has documented at least 11 Israeli killings of Lebanese journalists and press workers since the start of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah in 2023, which were supposedly brought to an end by a November 2024 ceasefire that Israel has repeatedly violated.

In the Gaza Strip, where Israel fought a war against the Palestinian armed group Hamas from October 2023 until an October 2025 ceasefire that has also been repeatedly breached, 210 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed by the Israeli military, the CPJ said.