A ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon that came into effect on a Thursday evening after 46 days of Israeli bombardment and a ground invasion of southern Lebanon has been thrown into question almost immediately, as Israeli forces established a militarised buffer zone dubbed the "Yellow Line" and continued attacks inside Lebanese territory within hours of the truce taking effect.
The Yellow Line designates a strip of territory roughly 10 kilometres deep inside southern Lebanon that Israel says it intends to keep under military control. Senior Israeli military officials confirmed on Saturday that the model mirrors what Israel has implemented in Gaza, where a similar line has divided the Palestinian enclave into separate zones since a ceasefire took effect there last October. In Gaza, Israeli forces routinely fire on anyone approaching the line, have demolished hundreds of homes, and have killed at least 773 people since that truce began. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made Israel's intentions explicit: "We are not leaving" the security strip, he said, describing it as "more intense, more continuous and more solid" than any previous arrangement. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz separately ordered the military to hold and control all positions it has cleared, drawing explicit comparisons to the near-total demolition of Palestinian border towns such as Beit Hanoun and Rafah.
On the ground, Al Jazeera correspondents reported Israeli forces blowing up homes in the town of Haneen, firing artillery into Beit Lif, al-Qantara and Toul, and continuing demolition and land-clearing operations across several border areas — all after the ceasefire had technically begun. Israel justified these actions by saying fighters had approached Israeli troop positions and triggered a self-defence clause embedded in the ceasefire text, which allows Israel to act against "planned, imminent, or ongoing attacks". Analysts say that language is deliberately broad. "Israel defines that fairly broadly, so not just imminent and ongoing threats, but even planned ones," noted one correspondent reporting from Beirut. Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem rejected this framing, insisting that "a ceasefire means a complete cessation of all hostilities" and warning that his fighters would remain deployed and respond to violations. Lebanon and Hezbollah have described the Yellow Line as an occupation of sovereign Lebanese territory.
The dispute is set against a deeper historical backdrop. Israel occupied southern Lebanon for 22 years before withdrawing in 2000, and has never relinquished the Shebaa Farms border area. A previous ceasefire agreed in November 2024 saw the UN document more than 10,000 Israeli violations before this latest round of fighting began. The Lebanese government has been holding parallel talks with Israel — negotiations Hezbollah has condemned — while also having outlawed Hezbollah's military wing. US President Donald Trump, who brokered the latest truce, announced that Israeli and Lebanese leaders could meet in Washington within the coming weeks.
Why this matters: the Yellow Line's emergence transforms what was announced as a ceasefire into something that analysts and Lebanese officials increasingly describe as a mechanism for formalising territorial control. Political commentator Abed Abou Shhadeh argued that Israel is building leverage for future negotiations, as it did in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, and the Syrian Golan Heights. For ordinary Lebanese, especially the residents of the 55 towns and villages the Israeli military says people cannot return to, the fear is that a temporary security zone becomes a permanent occupation — this time under the cover of a ceasefire agreement.