First posted on Instagram
Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz has boasted that Israeli forces destroyed everything in the security zone in southern Lebanon, saying more than 60 villages and 23,000 homes were wiped out and 200,000 residents displaced. Katz made the remarks in an appearance on Israel's Channel 14 on October 17, 2026, and repeated the claims in posts of his own on October 20, describing the destruction as the Gaza model being implemented in Lebanon.
According to Katz, every village in the zone, an area of 700 square kilometers stretching to the Yellow Line, was destroyed, along with underground infrastructure and tunnels, leaving no residents there. He said the villages had served as Hezbollah positions and were demolished in an operation he called Silver Plow, and that Israeli forces would not withdraw until Hezbollah is disarmed throughout Lebanon.
Katz also warned that any rocket or drone fire targeting Israel would prompt strikes on Beirut's southern suburbs, and that Israel could expand its occupation toward the Nabatieh and Litani areas if Hezbollah joined an Iranian attack, with residents of any newly seized territory evacuated and the areas permanently incorporated into the security zone. Fighting in Lebanon has subsided since a United States-brokered ceasefire came into force in June, but Israeli strikes and demolitions in the south have continued, and the United Nations estimated last month that as many as 360,000 Lebanese remained displaced by Israel's occupation.