BEIRUT (Dispatches) – Israel’s war minister declared on Sunday that its forces will remain indefinitely in a “security zone” carved into southern Lebanon, as the military pressed on with a terrorist campaign that has killed nearly 4,000 people and systematically destroyed entire villages across the border region.
“There has never been, and there is currently no restriction on IDF soldiers in Lebanon from acting to eliminate threats,” Israel Katz said in a statement, confirming that troops would not withdraw from the roughly 10-kilometer-deep occupied area. 
His remarks came despite a U.S.-Iran interim agreement that calls for an end to hostilities on all fronts, including Lebanon.
The announcement followed one of the war’s deadliest weekends. According to Lebanon’s Health Ministry, Israeli strikes on Friday and Saturday killed 105 people and wounded more than 150 others as the military launched over 200 attacks across southern and eastern Lebanon. 
Many of the bombs struck homes and civilian infrastructure, Anadolu correspondents reported. On Sunday, despite a brief lull, strikes continued, killing at least two people on the Zibdine–Nabatieh road.
The cumulative toll since March 2 now stands at 4,057 killed and 12,121 wounded, Lebanese officials said. Over one million people have been displaced.
On the ground, the extent of the destruction is becoming clear. The BBC, granted rare access to the occupied zone, reported that Shia villages have been “completely destroyed by Israeli airstrikes or demolitions”. Human rights groups have warned that the deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure may amount to a war crime.
Israel has published detailed maps of its expanded control zone, which now extends deeper into Lebanese territory, including areas near Nabatieh north of the Litani River. This “security buffer” also includes a naval zone extending into Lebanese Mediterranean waters.
War minister Katz has been unequivocal, stating Israel “opposes an IDF withdrawal from Lebanon, despite all the existing pressure”. This stance directly contravenes the terms of the June 17 interim agreement, which calls for guaranteeing Lebanon’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.
As U.S.-Iran negotiations continue in Switzerland, Israel’s stated policy of indefinite occupation and its open-ended license to “eliminate threats” portends a prolonged campaign of destruction, leaving southern Lebanon’s communities in ruins and its people in a state of perpetual displacement and fear.