Israel's Maariv newspaper reported on Sunday that the Israeli army plans to seize the southern Lebanese cities of Tyre, Sidon and Nabatieh if Hezbollah joins a renewed war with Iran — and that the Israeli navy could impose a blockade on the ports of Beirut and Tripoli.
The trigger, as Maariv presents it, is narrow: the plan is drawn for the day Hezbollah "attempts to challenge the Israeli military" in a resumed Israel–Iran war. Israeli assessments cited by the newspaper hold that Tehran, if attacked again, would activate several fronts at once, Lebanon among them. Israel, the report says, is taking that possibility "very seriously" and preparing to answer with "extremely heavy firepower," even though it assesses Hezbollah's capabilities as weakened. The scenarios Maariv outlines include intensified strikes across large parts of Beirut's southern suburbs and attacks on the coastal cities, followed by possible ground advances.
The navy sits at the centre of the reported plan for a practical reason: Maariv says the air force would be heavily engaged over Iran, leaving the fleet to carry the preliminary bombardment and deep strikes into Lebanon, concentrate its fire on the southern suburbs, and seal the two ports. The paper also noted that the 7th Armored Brigade has just ended a year of continuous operations in Lebanon and gone into refit, ready to deploy again quickly if the situation escalates.
What official confirmation exists for any of this? None. Everything in this story traces back to Maariv's single report, which attributes the picture to Israeli officials and security assessments it does not name. Neither the Israeli military nor the Israeli government has issued a statement confirming the plan, and no wire service has independently confirmed it. Read it for what it is: a reported contingency, not an announced policy.
The front such a plan would land on is already live. Israeli strikes and demolitions ran across the south all weekend, and on Sunday the military issued new displacement orders covering more than ten villages and towns, including Nabatieh-district areas north of the Litani. A United States-brokered ceasefire has existed on paper since April, and a June framework was supposed to bring a gradual withdrawal — yet Israel still holds ground in the south, and the war that widened in March has already killed thousands in Lebanon and driven more than a million people from their homes.
In Beirut, the report landed hard. Lebanese ministerial sources told Asharq Al-Awsat the situation is "worrying" and that another Israeli offensive cannot be excluded — "particularly if Hezbollah fails to honor its promise, as it has done before, and once again enters the conflict." Defence researcher Riad Kahwaji said the report should be taken seriously, as covering the whole south on both sides of the Litani. At Sunday Mass, Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi said the Lebanese people cannot withstand another conflict. No statement from Hezbollah responding to the Maariv report — and none from the presidency specifically on it — had appeared.
What would be at stake, if it ever happened, is plain enough. Tyre, Sidon and Nabatieh are not empty ground; they are living cities already hit by two wars in three years. A blockade of Beirut and Tripoli would close the ports through which Lebanon imports most of its fuel, food and medicine, and squeeze shipping across the eastern Mediterranean. But the chain Maariv describes has two links, and neither exists today: the war with Iran has not resumed, and Hezbollah has not joined one. Until both happen, this remains one newspaper's account of a plan on a shelf — a serious report, reported here as exactly that.
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