Israel intends to maintain “effective control” over southern Lebanon for an indefinite period after the current war ends, on the assumption that Hezbollah will not be fully disarmed, Israeli defense sources told the Jerusalem Post on Monday.

The sources said the proposed approach would differ significantly from Israel’s 1982–2000 occupation of southern Lebanon, when Israeli forces and allied militias maintained a constant physical presence across the area. Instead, Israel envisions a more flexible model relying on surveillance and firepower rather than permanent deployment.

Under this plan, the Israeli army would not maintain a continuous ground troop presence throughout southern Lebanon or up to the Litani River. Rather, the military would use a combination of sensors, intelligence capabilities, aerial surveillance, artillery, tanks, and limited ground forces positioned in selected areas to prevent Hezbollah from reestablishing itself.

There are currently no plans to establish permanent Israeli bases in southern Lebanon, although defense sources acknowledged that this could change if a prolonged standoff over Hezbollah’s disarmament were to emerge.

In the interim, Israel is expected to prevent the return of displaced residents—most of them Shiites affiliated with or sympathetic to Hezbollah—to villages in southern Lebanon. Defense sources also said that homes along the front line of southern villages that were not destroyed during the fall 2024 fighting are now being systematically demolished, based on the assessment that Hezbollah has used remaining structures for military purposes.

According to the same sources, about 621,000 Shiite residents have been displaced from southern Lebanon during the current conflict, along with approximately 585,000 from the southern suburbs of Beirut, known as Dahyeh. They added that 71% of residents south of the Litani River and 67% of those south of the Zahrani River have been evacuated.

Within Dahyeh, several neighborhoods have been almost completely emptied, while others are only partially evacuated, with roughly one-third to two-thirds of residents having left.

Defense officials said there is no clear timeline for ending the war with Hezbollah and declined to set even a tentative timeframe, suggesting the conflict could outlast Israel’s confrontation with Iran. At the same time, they noted that a temporary reduction in hostilities remains possible once the war with Tehran subsides, with the future of Israel’s presence in southern Lebanon likely to be addressed through diplomatic channels.

The sources also revealed that both Hezbollah and Iran had seriously considered launching preemptive strikes against Israel before the current conflict. While Israeli officials had previously voiced concern about a possible Iranian first strike, Monday marked the first time Israeli sources indicated that Hezbollah had weighed a similar option.

According to the officials, Hezbollah had ordered around 1,000 fighters from its elite Radwan force to move south toward Israeli positions. The group was reportedly angered by the scale of Israeli strikes following the fall 2024 ceasefire, even though those attacks were less intense than previous rounds of fighting.

Defense sources suggested that any such operation would likely have targeted Israeli forces along the border, combining ground attacks against troops with rocket fire aimed at both military positions and northern Israeli communities. They stopped short, however, of confirming whether Hezbollah intended a full-scale incursion into Israeli territory.