Despite rocky history, Israel once again weighing security zone in Lebanon

After October 7, Israel redrew its border doctrine around buffer zones. Now, as Hezbollah regroups in southern Lebanon, debate is growing over whether a new security strip is needed.

Following the Hamas attack onOctober 7, Israel established what is effectively a Hamas-free buffer between Gaza and Israeli communities in the western Negev known as the Yellow Line.

This zone reflects a lesson that has shaped Israel’s security strategy since the attack: hostile forces cannot be allowed to sit within immediate striking distance of Israeli civilian communities.

The same logic has guided Israeli moves elsewhere during the war.

Following the collapse of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime, Israel moved to establish a buffer area in parts of southern Syria, creating distance between Israeli communities on the Golan Heights and hostile forces across the border.

Now, after Hezbollah has entered the current war on Iran’s side by launching rockets and drones toward Israel, voices inside Israel are increasingly calling for a similar step in Lebanon.

And those voices are not coming only from the political Right.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid told i24 News last week that Israel may ultimately have no choice but to create a sterile strip inside southern Lebanon. The idea, he suggested, would be to create a zone resembling the Yellow Line in Gaza: “an area with no Lebanese villages in it – a completely clean strip between the last Lebanese and the first Israeli community.”

Lapid acknowledged that “it may be unaesthetic, unpleasant to scrape away two or three Lebanese villages,” but that Lebanon brought this upon itself. “No one told them they had to become a host state for a terrorist organization,” he said.

His comments reflect increased talk among Israeli political and military leaders about establishing a security zone inside southern Lebanon.

More precisely, it would mean the re-establishment of such a zone.

Can Israel afford to repeat history of a security zone in Lebanon?

From 1985 until Israel’s withdrawal in 2000, the IDF maintained a security belt in southern Lebanon designed to shield northern Israel from infiltration and cross-border attacks. The zone was created following the First Lebanon War and remained in place for 15 years before then-prime minister Ehud Barak ordered the IDF to withdraw.

Hezbollah quickly filled the vacuum left behind.

At the time the zone was created, Israeli leaders argued that, to protect the northern communities, the battlefield needed to be pushed away from the border. Maintaining a military presence inside Lebanon, they believed, would create an insulating layer separating Israeli towns from terrorist groups operating in the area.

The security zone eventually stretched several kilometers into Lebanese territory. Israeli forces, working alongside the South Lebanon Army militia, manned dozens of fortified positions placed along key terrain.

The primary mission was to prevent terrorists from infiltrating Israel, and by that measure, the zone largely succeeded.

During the 15 years it existed, only a handful of terrorists managed to reach the border, and even fewer succeeded in crossing it.

The buffer also pushed Katyusha rocket launch sites farther north, reducing the accuracy and effectiveness of attacks on the Galilee.

But the arrangement came at a cost.

During this 15-year period, 256 IDF soldiers were killed in the security zone, many in roadside bombings and ambushes carried out by Hezbollah terrorists who waged a sustained guerrilla war.

Those casualty figures were too high for the Israeli public to tolerate, and there was a sense among many that Israel was sinking into a Lebanese quagmire. That public atmosphere is what led to Barak’s decision to unilaterally withdraw from the security zone.

Ironically, the strategic logic behind that earlier policy is resurfacing today.

Israel’s military leadership has repeatedly emphasized the need to prevent hostile forces from operating within anti-tank missile range of Israeli border communities – precisely the situation that existed before October 7 along the Gaza border and, until Israel waged war against Hezbollah in 2024, along parts of the northern frontier.

IDF spokesman Brig.-Gen. Effie Defrin said last week that Israeli forces had seized dominant terrain along the border and were creating a buffer between Israeli residents and potential threats.

The goal, he indicated, is to ensure that Hezbollah cannot operate within immediate striking distance of communities in the Upper Galilee.

That thinking reflects one of the most widely cited lessons from the October 7 attack: enemies positioned only a few kilometers from Israeli towns will eventually exploit that proximity.

The idea of re-establishing a security zone surfaced once Hezbollah joined Iran and fired rockets against Israel.

For Israel, Hezbollah remains unfinished business, and its attack provided an opportunity to “finish the job.”

During the war that erupted in October 2023, Israel dealt the organization some of the most severe blows in its history. Much of Hezbollah’s senior leadership was eliminated, including its leader Hassan Nasrallah, and significant parts of its military infrastructure were destroyed.

Yet the ceasefire that ended the 2024 war halted the campaign before Hezbollah was completely dismantled, giving it time to regroup.

In the months that followed – even amid periodic Israeli strikes – it maintained a lower public profile while working quietly to rebuild its capabilities.

According to a Reuters report, citing regional officials and security sources, Hezbollah has spent months replenishing its stocks of rockets and drones following the war, receiving some $50 million a month from Iran and drawing on domestic production capabilities.

Although significantly weakened, Hezbollah is still believed to possess tens of thousands of rockets and missiles, along with large quantities of anti-tank weapons that – if Hezbollah infiltrates back into southern Lebanon – pose an immediate threat to IDF troops and border communities.

Its elite Radwan force – originally trained for cross-border raids into Israel – has also redeployed fighters near the Litani River, with some moving into southern Lebanon itself.

Developments inside Lebanon are adding to the pressure on Hezbollah. The Lebanese authorities have recently taken the unprecedented step of declaring their military activity illegal and attempting to curb the presence of Iranian operatives who have long supported it.

Lebanese leaders across the political spectrum, including Shia leaders such as Amal head Nabi Berri, have publicly criticized the group for dragging the country into another destructive war.

The result is that Hezbollah is facing military pressure from Israel and political pressure from inside Lebanon.

Yet, loyal to their Iranian paymasters, they continue firing on Israel, giving the country another opportunity to seek to dismantle it.

Whether that is an achievable goal is a matter of contention. What seems far less disputed, however, is the need for a buffer to keep Hezbollah away from the border. After October 7, hostile forces positioned within spitting distance of Israeli communities are not a risk Israel is prepared to accept again – a conclusion that has brought Israeli thinking back toward a strategy it discarded a quarter century ago.