By Steven Scheer
JERUSALEM, March 31 (Reuters) - Israel will destroy all homes in Lebanese villages near the border and 600,000 people who fled the south will not be allowed home until northern Israel is secure, the defence minister said on Tuesday, vowing to inflict Gaza-like destruction in the area.
Israel Katz reiterated Israeli plans to establish a buffer zone in southern Lebanon, saying that it would maintain control over a swathe of territory up to the Litani River once the war with the Iran-backed Hezbollah group ended.
More than 1.2 million people have been displaced and another 1,200 have been killed in Lebanon since Israel launched an offensive against Hezbollah on March 2, ignited by the group's decision to open fire in support of Tehran in the regional war.
The Litani River meets the Mediterranean about 30 km (20 miles) north of Israel's border, and the area between it and the Israeli border amounts to nearly a 10th of Lebanon's territory.
The Israeli military earlier this month ordered residents to leave swathes of the south, the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut, and the group's political heartlands in eastern Lebanon.
Lebanon's minister of social affairs Haneen Sayed told Reuters that Israel's ground operation, which she described as a "land grab," was deepening the risk that Lebanese would be stuck in long-term displacement.
'RAFAH MODEL'
Katz said Israeli forces would eliminate Hezbollah's elite Radwan fighters who infiltrated the south and destroy all weapons.
"At the end of the operation, the IDF (Israeli military) will establish a security zone inside Lebanon — a line of defence against anti-tank missiles — and will maintain security control over the entire area up to the Litani River, including the remaining Litani bridges," he said in a statement.
Displaced residents would not be allowed to return south of the Litani "until the safety and security of residents of northern Israel is guaranteed", he added.
"All houses in villages near the Lebanese border will be destroyed, in accordance with the model used in Rafah and Beit Hanoun in Gaza, in order to permanently remove the threats near the border to northern residents," he said.
European countries called on Israel to avoid further escalation. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Israel's occupation of Lebanese territory was a "violation of their territorial sovereignty...so we condemn it."
HOME DEMOLITIONS
Tom Dannenbaum, a law professor at Stanford Law School, said the laws of war require that any controlled demolition of homes be justified by "absolute military necessity," adding that destroying all homes near the border would not meet that standard. "The unnecessary destruction of property can qualify as a war crime," he said.
Dannenbaum added that Katz’s comments barring residents from returning home "strongly indicate an illegal policy of long-term or permanent displacement."
Senior Israeli military officials have said troops searched homes in southern Lebanon and concluded that the partial or total destruction of villages was justified by claims that Hezbollah stored weapons in homes. The military has rarely provided evidence for such allegations, which Hezbollah denies.
HEZBOLLAH FIRED 5,000 DRONES, MISSILES
Israeli military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said that Hezbollah had fired almost 5,000 drones, rockets and missiles at Israel during the conflict. The Israeli military also announced a new wave of strikes it said were targeting Hezbollah infrastructure in Beirut's southern suburbs.
The war is the second major conflict between Israel and Hezbollah since 2024. Israel dealt Hezbollah heavy blows in the last war, killing its leader Hassan Nasrallah and thousands of its fighters.
Israel has targeted Lebanon's south, east and the southern suburbs of its capital. On Tuesday, Israel's military issued an evacuation order for a building on Beirut's southern outskirts.
A subsequent strike sent a ball of fire into the sky and took out several floors of the building, leaving mangled solar panels hanging off its edge.
The Lebanese health ministry has reported that 1,268 people have been killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon, including 125 children and 52 medics. Sources told Reuters last week that more than 400 Hezbollah fighters had been killed.
The Israeli military has reported that 10 of its soldiers have been killed in fighting with Hezbollah.
(Additional reporting by Anthony Deutsch in Amsterdam, Gavin Jones in Rome, Maya Gebeily in Beirut, and Rami Ayyub in Jerusalem; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Alex Richardson and Ros Russell)
