How Israel's "yellow line" is reshaping southern Lebanon

Demolished homes and shifting military lines leave Lebanese uncertain whether they will be able to return.

BEIRUT, Lebanon – Ali is from Khayyam, a Lebanese village on the southern border with Israel, but for the past few months he has been renting a house in Hasbiyah, about half an hour's drive to the northeast. He is one of the tens of thousands of Lebanese who have been displaced from their homes in villages across the south of the country.

Ali, who did not want to give his full name, told Al Jazeera: "Southern people live in a tragedy. "All these are incomplete tragedies and failed policies."

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End of list Despite a framework agreement between Lebanon and Israel signed in June - aimed at ensuring Israel's gradual withdrawal from Lebanon - Israel continues to occupy large parts of its neighboring south, where it has systematically destroyed homes and infrastructure in dozens of villages.

Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz has previously said that his country's forces will not withdraw from Lebanon, marking a widespread occupation similar to Israel's last 22-year occupation.

On March 2, the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah group fired rockets at Israel for the first time in more than a year. The Iran-backed group said the attack was a response to Israel's daily aggression since the November 2024 ceasefire and the assassination of Iran's leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, two days before the start of the US-Israeli war against Iran.

Israel responded by escalating its war against Lebanon for the second time in less than two years. Israel's attacks, as well as its renewed invasion of southern Lebanon, displaced more than 1.2 million people. Since then, Beirut has entered direct negotiations with the Israeli government, brokered by the United States, despite objections from Hezbollah, which has been fighting Israel since October 2023. This group traces its roots in the 1980s to resisting Israel's occupation of Lebanon.

However, the Lebanese government continued the talks, which eventually led to a framework agreement. One of the elements of this agreement was the creation of "pilot areas" from which Israel would withdraw and the Lebanese Armed Forces would replace it and disarm Hezbollah forces in this area.

Israel currently occupies an area 10 km (6.2 mi) deep in southern Lebanon. Behind the "yellow line" which is the end of the occupied zone, Israel continues to blow up houses. Israel uses the same term "yellow line" to refer to the areas under its control in Gaza.

"Israel's initial goals were to empty, depopulate and make uninhabitable those dozens of villages and towns on the front line, and we have now seen that with satellite images," Mohammad Bazi, a New York-based political analyst originally from Bent Jubeil, told Al Jazeera. This was a way to apply the Gaza model in Lebanon."

About 50 frontline villages have been destroyed, including places like Khayyam and Bint Jubeil.

He said: Unlike the previous occupations, Israel's goal this time was to empty those cities and villages of their inhabitants, drive them out, destroy housing and infrastructure as much as possible, and make it difficult, if not impossible, for people to return to their homes.

"[The yellow line] is seen as a hard border, both in terms of the presence of troops and the controlled destruction of villages, which continues despite the ceasefire," Ahmad Baidoun, a Lebanese architect and open-source researcher based in the Netherlands, told Al Jazeera. As if the ceasefire applies to the rest of Lebanon, but not to this land.

On the northern side of the yellow line, residents have returned to destroyed villages, including several towns included in the "experimental zone" program.

One of those settlements is Feroun, which the Israeli army destroyed with airstrikes and drones, but its forces did not enter it.

"We were surprised that this area was included [as a] pilot area," Hassan Bazai, head of Faroon's municipal office, told Al Jazeera.

The yellow line is not the only color line that is used in Lebanon to refer to the army. The blue line was created in 2000 after the end of the years of occupation of southern Lebanon by Israel, and the Israeli forces retreated behind it.

And now there are discussions in Israel about the creation of a "grey line". Reports suggest that the line could extend 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) into Lebanon. The area behind the gray line remains uninhabited and effectively acts as a buffer zone for Israel, which does not allow Lebanese civilians to rebuild their homes in the area.

"Part of Israel's strategy here with the gray line, the blue line, the yellow line, is to sow confusion and hide or obfuscate the reality of what Israel has done on the ground [namely] to depopulate this vast Lebanese land and make it uninhabitable," said analyst Bezi. In the end, it doesn't really matter what the definitions of these lines are, as they are often changing. We've seen it happen in Gaza, and the result is that Israel illegally occupies and illegally devastates and ethnically cleanses a huge part of southern Lebanon, and the world remains silent while most of it happens.

But even in an area on the Israeli-controlled side of the Yellow Line, some villagers remain, reflecting Israel's efforts to play on Lebanon's sectarian divides. The majority of southern Lebanon's population is Shia Muslims, but officials in non-Shia areas have said they have received warnings not to welcome refugees into the country. Their cities, even those who are allowed to stay, do not live in complete freedom.

"The villages that Israel has allowed to settle inside the yellow line are mainly Christian and Sunni," explained Bidun. But being allowed to stay does not mean being free to live. In Kefarchoba, municipal workers were kidnapped while pumping water in the village, and the mayor himself was arrested. Even in Deir Mimas, a village outside the yellow line, the Lebanese army set up an outpost so that farmers could reach their olive groves, and Israeli tanks came to the entrance of the village.

Pointing to Israel's occupation of the West Bank, Bidun described the new reality of southern Lebanon as "the Western banking of those who remain."

"Residents are allowed to live on their land but not use it freely," he said. "Access to farms depends on checkpoints, coordination and the spirit of a patrol. Municipal officials are arrested and interrogated at will. This is a control model that does not require the evacuation of the village to operate."

Analysts believe that the occupation of southern Lebanon could extend into the foreseeable future. The Lebanese government has promised to build prefabricated houses in some areas, but may face difficulties in providing public services such as water, electricity and sewage disposal to areas where infrastructure has been extensively damaged or destroyed.

Even if the Israelis retreat, many border areas will be in complete ruins, dust, rubble and ashes where homes and farmland once thrived.

"There are some cities that may be able to be returned to with significant work, but in the 50 or so front-line cities or villages, I don't think it will be possible in the short or medium term," Bezi said.

This is a wound for many southerners who are forced to continue their lives elsewhere while their homes and land are destroyed and occupied. For them, Israel's military occupation will reshape southern Lebanon for the next generation.

"Khayyam is destroyed, it's nothing, it's uninhabitable for the next 10, 15, 20 years," said Ali, a displaced Khayyam man. They took us back to the Stone Age.