BEIRUT – Despite a 60-day ceasefire with Hezbollah, the Israeli military advanced into dozens of new positions across southern Lebanon in the first 40 days of the deal, damaging or destroying hundreds of buildings as it searched for weapons and other infrastructure, according to a Washington Post review of previously unreported satellite data and open-source imagery, as well as interviews with U.N., Western and Lebanese officials and diplomats.
The Israel Defense Forces launched near-daily strikes on Hezbollah’s stronghold during that period, according to the data and imagery. But it’s unclear whether these military actions constitute violations of the ceasefire because the U.S.-led committee to monitor the deal has yet to define what counts as a violation of the truce, diplomats said.
The confusion has called into question the durability of the ceasefire agreement – and what comes after the initial period ends on Jan. 26, especially as Israel and Hamas move to enact a separate truce to end fighting in Gaza.
The Israeli military said in a statement that it “is operating in accordance with the understandings between Israel and Lebanon.” The military accuses Hezbollah of continuing to operate near the border and says its military activity is aimed at dismantling the group’s assets in line with the ceasefire agreement signed Nov. 26.
The IDF did not answer questions about whether it had advanced into new territory or engaged in the widespread destruction of homes and businesses along the border.
The U.S.-backed ceasefire, which expires this month, halted an all-out war that broke out in September after almost a year of low-level fighting. The agreement calls for both Israel and Hezbollah, a once-powerful political and military force, to withdraw from the border region by Jan. 26 and for the deployment of the Lebanese army and U.N. peacekeepers to that area.
So far, Israel has withdrawn from six areas in the south, including the majority of its positions on the western side, according to the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, or UNIFIL, which said that Israeli troops remain in most areas along the border. Under the deal, Hezbollah fighters are supposed to retreat beyond the Litani River, 18 miles north of the border.
While The Post’s review of satellite data and imagery shows Israeli military activity during the first 40 days of the ceasefire, Hezbollah’s actions are harder to discern. The U.N. Security Council was alerted to Hezbollah firing two projectiles at the Israeli-held Shebaa Farms, a disputed territory on the border with Syria and Lebanon, during the first five days of truce. But there have been no documented instances or allegations of Hezbollah launching rockets into Israel or attacking Israeli forces since. It is unclear how many fighters are still in southern Lebanon or where they are located.
U.S. officials have in recent days acknowledged that the agreement may not be implemented within the original time frame. The United States is “working hard in diplomatic channels” to extend the ceasefire “beyond the 60 days,” John Kirby, the Biden administration’s National Security Council spokesman, said on Jan. 10.
“Every day is day 60,” said a senior member of the implementation committee who, like others in this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. “We have to assume that it’s going to fall apart at any time.”
Lebanese officials say they have been stunned by Israel’s military activity during the ceasefire and on Dec. 24, Lebanon complained to the United Nations, asserting that here were more than 800 Israeli violations in the first few weeks of the truce.
Since the ceasefire began, the IDF has barred civilians and journalists from entering a roughly 200-square-mile area in southern Lebanon. Between Dec. 5 and Jan. 6, more than 800 buildings were damaged or destroyed in this zone, according to a Post analysis of Sentinel-1 satellite data provided by Corey Scher of CUNY Graduate Center and Jamon Van Den Hoek of Oregon State University.
The full extent of the damage in the post-ceasefire period cannot be calculated, however, since no Sentinel-1 data was available from the first day of the truce. But from Dec. 5 onward, an average of more than 26 buildings were damaged or destroyed each day inside the zone – exceeding the rate of destruction during the cross-border fighting from Oct. 8, 2023, to Oct. 2, 2024, according to Scher.
Videos verified by The Post – including some posted online by official IDF accounts – show controlled demolitions of multiple buildings in at least one town and a rural area near the border, as well as the use of bulldozers to damage or destroy structures in the zone. Israeli forces have also conducted more than 400 air, missile, shelling or artillery strikes across Lebanon between Nov. 27 and Jan. 6, according to conflict monitoring group ACLED.
“They are violating the ceasefire agreement,” Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib said in an interview last month. “I hope they stop and withdraw from southern Lebanon quickly. They agreed to it, and we want to implement it.”
An immediate test
In a speech announcing the ceasefire, President Joe Biden said it was “designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities.”
“We’re determined this conflict will not be just another cycle of violence,” he said.
Almost immediately, though, the agreement – and Washington’s ability to guarantee it – was put to the test.
In the first five days of the truce, Israel fired at least 99 projectiles into Lebanon, and Hezbollah fired two projectiles into Israel, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, head of U.N. peacekeeping operations, told the U.N. Security Council last month, according to a diplomat with knowledge of the meeting.
Hezbollah, which once boasted a robust arsenal of rockets and missiles, has not fired into Israel since then and has said very little about the ongoing military activity.
“They are in a very sensitive situation,” a Hezbollah member familiar with the leadership’s thinking said of the group. “They cannot start a war at this time.”
Still, Israeli officials say that the group is violating the agreement by keeping fighters in southern Lebanon and trying to move munitions north of the Litani River. The senior committee member declined to comment on Hezbollah’s presence in the south and said the mechanism is focused instead on the deployment of Lebanese forces. He added that the committee is watching for Hezbollah and IDF violations, without elaborating.
As part of the deal’s implementation, the Lebanese army is supposed to dismantle Hezbollah weapons in the south. But Israeli officials have voiced concerns over whether the overstretched and underfunded Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) is up to the task.
The ceasefire hinges largely on Lebanon’s ability to secure the border region and send roughly 10,000 troops south of the Litani River. More than 4,500 Lebanese troops have been deployed so far with the recruitment of another 1,500 underway.
“The first condition for the agreement’s implementation is the complete withdrawal of the Hezbollah terrorist organization beyond the Litani River, the dismantling of all weapons and the neutralization of terror infrastructures in the area by the Lebanese army,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said earlier this month. “If this condition is not met, there will be no agreement, and Israel will be forced to act independently.”
The international committee responsible for monitoring the ceasefire – which includes the United States, France, Lebanon, Israel and UNIFIL – has only met three times, two diplomats said. The United States and France, the two major powers that brokered the agreement, have been trying to reconcile their differences over the mechanics of the deal, including the process for Israel’s withdrawal and the future role U.N. peacekeepers might play, a U.N. diplomat said.
“They are building the ship as they are sailing it,” the U.N. diplomat said of the committee. “There doesn’t seem to be a long-term strategic plan or even a medium-term strategic plan. They are trying to adjust to the situation on the ground as they go.”
The U.S. Embassy in Beirut did not respond to questions sent by The Post about whether the U.S.-led monitoring committee views the ongoing operations as a violation of the agreement. But diplomats said Israel is routinely ignoring requests from the committee to inform it before carrying out operations. Under the agreement, the reports should go to the committee first so that the LAF and UNIFIL can investigate.
After carrying out strikes across Lebanon on Jan. 11, the Israeli military said that it had informed the committee of the threats, but that the Lebanese army failed to act on the intelligence. It was only the second time it said it notified the committee beforehand.
Any one of the parties can submit intelligence of a threat, the senior committee member said, after which the report will be verified and passed on to the LAF. The United States and France are both collecting intelligence on Hezbollah weapons stores, the member said, using surveillance aircraft to monitor south of the Litani River.
But some parts of the IDF are reluctant to share intelligence with the Lebanese army, Israeli military analysts said.
“We see the Lebanese army enforcing, clearing out weapons, collecting equipment … it’s happening,” Maj. Gen. Ori Gordin, commander of the IDF’s northern front, said in remarks to local Israeli residents this month, according to a recording of the meeting released by Israel’s Channel 12.
“Is it happening at the pace we would like? No,” Gordin said. “Is there no cooperation between the Lebanese army and Hezbollah? There is. We see it.”
A slowed, not stopped, operation
Israel estimates that Hezbollah has retained 20 to 30 percent of its weaponry, according to retired Col. Miri Eisin, a former senior intelligence officer in the Israeli military who has been briefed on security discussions.
In response, the IDF is both returning to places where it operated earlier in the conflict – and venturing into new areas – in an effort to find tunnel networks and other weapons and assets used by Hezbollah militants, Eisin said. By Dec. 27, Israeli troops had already advanced farther into Lebanon than they were during the war in at least 31 areas in the south, according to Lebanon’s National Council for Scientific Research, or CNRS, an independent state institution that compiles daily situation reports for the government that shared its findings with The Post.
The U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said 27 civilians have been killed in Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon since the ceasefire came into effect.
On Dec. 22, IDF spokesman Avichay Adraee posted a video on X that shows a large controlled explosion ripping through the Lebanese village of Yaroun, which sits just across the Israeli border.
Clouds of dust and smoke soar dozens of feet into the air, swallowing much of the town. According to CNRS, the incident was one of at least 88 detonations that took place over the first month of the ceasefire.
The military’s larger controlled demolitions are aimed at collapsing the tunnels that run between villages, while the smaller explosions – which can still damage multiple buildings – target the shafts of more modest tunnels used by the fighters, Eisin said.
“The tunnels all start inside buildings. That was the challenge while we were fighting in there openly, when Hezbollah was still there on the ground,” she added.
In Yaroun, a small village home to both Muslims and Christians, more than 8 percent of the war damage there has occurred since Dec. 5, according to a Post analysis of data provided by Scher and Van Den Hoek.
During the ceasefire, at least one church was destroyed and two mosques damaged, a comparison of satellite imagery provided by Planet Labs shows. Homes and businesses have been flattened and a tree-filled neighbourhood reduced to rolling hills of dirt.
More than six dozen municipalities, including Yaroun, were part of Israel’s closed military zone. The IDF was not present in much of the zone when the ceasefire started, according to maps the senior committee member showed The Post. And while the Lebanese army has secured some parts, the IDF has continued to move in and out of new areas, changing the map of control on a “day-by-day basis,” the member said.
Israeli forces used the ceasefire to enter Naqoura, a coastal town about 20 miles to the west, for the first time, according to data provided by the Institute for the Study of War. A comparison of satellite imagery between Nov. 26 and Jan. 7 reveals a likely route: two new clearings that straighten a winding road leading to Naqoura from the Israeli border – a distance of about two miles.
“Given the length, breadth and terrain” of the clearings, they would have had to be made by heavy equipment, said conflict analyst William Goodhind. Their shape suggests they were used for quicker military movements uphill, giving the IDF strategic advantage, he said.
During that same period, three additional clearings appeared in the imagery. They cut through the dense forest that carpets the valleys between Israel and Naqoura’s southern outskirts, removing any potential cover, which would improve visibility from the road on the ridgetop to the valley below.
Nearly 40 buildings were damaged or destroyed in the district since Dec. 5, according to the data – accounting for 14 percent of Naqoura’s total damage. The Lebanese army has since deployed to Naqoura after Israel withdrew earlier this month.
In Kfar Kila, which is just a half-mile from the Israeli border, satellite imagery shows that the center of town has been reduced to ash and rubble. At least 65 buildings were damaged or destroyed there since Dec. 5. Both there and in six other municipalities in the south, more than half of the total buildings have been damaged or destroyed since the conflict started in October 2023.
In a country that was shattered economically before the war, rebuilding presents an enormous challenge.
“We’re tolerating it for the 60 days but after that it’s not acceptable,” a senior Lebanese official said of Israel’s military operations.
“We’re a small country. We’re not going to declare war on Israel,” the official said, adding that Hezbollah will “reemerge to resist violations if the occupation continues and if the violations continue.”