Since Oct. 7, the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has evolved through two rounds of ground fighting, the second of which remains effectively frozen, alongside extensive Israeli airstrikes and repeated Hezbollah rocket and missile attacks against targets inside Israel. Cease-fires have been reached but not fully observed, while low-intensity reciprocal attacks and psychological warfare have become perhaps the most enduring features of the confrontation.

After the cease-fire reached on Nov. 27, 2024, Israel’s continued use of selective targeted strikes can be understood as an effort to prevent Hezbollah from recovering from the significant losses in both manpower and military assets it suffered. In Israel’s strategic thinking, a war against Iran that leads to the collapse of the regime in Tehran would also shift the balance in Lebanon in Israel’s favor and against Hezbollah. Until such a change takes place in Tehran, keeping Hezbollah unable to reconstitute itself would offer Israel a much easier and less costly way to contain the threat emanating from Lebanon.

Degraded but not neutralized

Yet several important factors are often overlooked. First, when compared with Hezbollah’s pre-Oct. 7 capacity, which was reported, including by Israeli sources, to include more than 40,000 operatives and hundreds of thousands of rockets and missiles, the loss of 3,000 to 5,000 fighters and the depletion or destruction of part of its arsenal did not fundamentally change the balance in southern Lebanon.

The organization’s intervention in the U.S.-Israel-Iran war showed that it remained both capable and willing to threaten Israel, especially in the north, through rockets, missiles and drones. This placed the coalition in a difficult position, given its earlier claims of success, while the course of events, in a manner reminiscent of the 2006 war, pushed the Israeli army toward a new ground operation.

After the first round of fighting, Israel did not withdraw from five strategic positions in southern Lebanon. It established control over parts of the border area, extending in some places to a depth of 5 to 10 kilometers and carried out major assaults on Hezbollah strongholds such as al-Khiam and Bint Jbeil. Yet the fighting also showed that Hezbollah had adapted its existing asymmetric capabilities by drawing lessons from the Russia-Ukraine war, particularly in the use of first-person-view (FPV) drones and even fiber-optic FPV drones. These systems were used to target Israeli armored units and soldiers, adding a new layer to the threat Israel faces along the northern front.

Quest for 'bufferization'

For a long time, Israel framed its demands with reference to U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 as the complete dismantling of Hezbollah’s infrastructure south of the Litani River, the organization’s withdrawal northward and the deployment of the Lebanese army in the area.

In the current context, however, Israel appears to be pushing this line further north toward the Zahrani River, while taking steps that point to a broader depopulation of the area. This is particularly visible in the areas under Israeli control, where buildings and residential structures have been destroyed in a way that prevents the return of the local population.

The 5-to-10-kilometer belt along the border has emerged as a measure against Hezbollah’s ability to target northern Israel, especially with anti-tank guided missiles. Hezbollah continues to pose an active threat in this terrain, making use of the area’s topography. This is not the kind of threat that can be addressed through Iron Dome alone. It is an asymmetric challenge that requires Israel, in its own strategic logic, to seek depth, visibility and forward control along the border.

The reference to the Zahrani River can be understood as an alternative forward-defense measure against Hezbollah’s newly developed FPV drone capabilities. It amounts to a kind of buffer zone, or rather a softer buffer zone, dependent on reconnaissance and surveillance capacity to protect Israeli forces deployed in the area.

What is also striking is Israel’s effort to extend this "bufferization” strategy across the entire northern front and to integrate its different components. In southern Syria, Israel has also moved beyond the 1974 Disengagement Line and established a presence in 13 locations.

It has also pressured the new administration to demilitarize the area south of Damascus, stretching from Jabal Sheikh to Jabal Druze. Israel has expanded its occupation around Jabal Sheikh as well and during its operation against Hezbollah, it used Alpine units deployed there to move into Lebanon.

Although Syria’s internal dynamics have disrupted the Syrian dimension of this strategy, it is still possible to argue that the effort remains ongoing. In this sense, the process in Lebanon forms part of a broader Israeli strategy extending from Rosh Hanikra to the Golan Heights and down to Ramat Gader near the Jordanian border.

Logic behind buffer policy

When Israel’s earlier plans and practices are considered, it becomes clear that demographic engineering has often been used, alongside hard-power instruments, as a means of producing more durable solutions under the specific conditions of a given theater.

One example is former Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion’s proposal for a buffer Christian state, with the Litani River serving as its southern border. Yigal Allon, after the 1967 war, also conceived of the Druze as a "strategic buffer community” that could be used against Syria.

According to this logic, an Israel-backed Druze presence in the Golan and Hauran, the historical name for the area that today includes Daraa and Suwayda, could function as a forward outpost against the Arab front. Where such arrangements cannot be realized, depopulation tends to emerge as an alternative solution. Yet, as noted above, such efforts remain dependent on the suitability of conditions on the ground and in the international environment.

Israel’s northern strategy is therefore no longer confined to weakening Hezbollah or enforcing the terms of Resolution 1701. It increasingly reflects an attempt to convert military pressure into territorial depth, surveillance advantage and de facto control across the Lebanon-Golan arc. Yet this approach carries a structural dilemma. A buffer belt may reduce some immediate tactical threats, particularly anti-tank fire, infiltration risks, and short-range attacks, but it cannot by itself neutralize Hezbollah’s residual strike capabilities or erase the political conditions that sustain the organization.

On the contrary, depopulation, forward-defense practices and prolonged Israeli control could generate new grievances and deepen Lebanon’s instability. The central question, then, is not simply whether Hezbollah has been degraded but whether Israel’s search for security through space is creating the foundations for another cycle of confrontation.