Israeli troops skied into southern Lebanon from recently seized territory in Syria in the early hours of Sunday.
It is the first such cross-border operation undertaken by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) Alpinist Unit.
For weeks, Israel has clashed with Tehran-backed Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon, in addition to launching airstrikes on key infrastructure and civilian buildings in the country’s east and its capital, Beirut.
Alpinist Unit reservists of the 810th “Mountains” Regional Brigade “operated in complex mountainous terrain and crossed, by climbing through snow, from the Syrian Hermon to the Mount Dov area in southern Lebanon, to scan the area, collect intelligence, and locate enemy terror infrastructure in the area,” the IDF said.
They join wider Israeli forces operating in over a dozen villages across southern Lebanon as they push north towards the Litani river.
Concerns of another long-term occupation have grown as the IDF’s operational ambitions in the region have become clearer. Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz recently announced the area would be cleared of all residents and homes in “contact-line villages” would be destroyed “in accordance with the model of Beit Hanun and Rafah in Gaza.”
“I have just instructed to further expand the existing security buffer zone. We are determined to fundamentally change the situation in the north [of Israel],” Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday.
Lebanon was drawn into the ongoing US-Israeli war with Iran across the Middle East on 2 March, when Hezbollah launched missiles towards Israel following the killing of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Since then, more than 1,200 people in Lebanon have been killed and a million displaced; a fifth of the country’s population.
Among those killed over the weekend are three journalists and 10 rescue service staff, bringing the total number of health workers killed by Israeli fire to 52.
Mount Hermon straddles the Syrian-Lebanese border but was seized by the IDF in December 2024 in the immediate aftermath of former president Bashar al-Assad’s downfall.
It expanded upon earlier territorial gains Israel had made in Syria, including the 1967 capture of the Golan Heights, an annexation the Israeli government formalised in 1981 and only the United States recognises.
Israel maintains at least nine military posts in southern Syria, two of which on the Syrian side of Mount Hermon, from which their artillery cannons can hit Damascus 22 miles away, and a further seven in a UN-monitored buffer zone established in 1974.
The Israeli military claims their presence there is essential to seize arms they claim could fall into the possession of “hostile forces”.
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