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Since the earliest days of the Zionist project, strategic doctrine has pointed north toward the Litani River \u2013 and every attempt to advance has collapsed on the same Lebanese ridge.<\/p>\n
According to biblical tradition, the patriarch Jacob pitched his tents on the plain of Khiam \u2013 a name that literally means \u201cthe tents.\u201d Millennia later, the same ridge has become a recurring battlefield. The occupation state that invokes Jacob\u2019s inheritance as a historical justification has spent decades trying to seize this hilltop and has never managed to hold it.<\/p>\n
The irony is neither subtle nor accidental. Israeli brigades continue to advance along the same narrow axes, Merkava tanks climb the same slopes, and resistance fighters prepare the same ambushes. War after war. Withdrawal after withdrawal. As if repetition itself might eventually produce victory.<\/p>\n
It never has.<\/p>\n
Today, with Hezbollah\u2019s elite Radwan Force\u00a0redeployed<\/a>\u00a0among the ruins and Kornet anti\u2011tank teams positioned inside the rubble of a former detention complex where\u00a0thousands<\/a>\u00a0of Lebanese were tortured under Israeli supervision, the occupation army is once again pushing toward Khiam \u2013 a battlefield it failed to control in 1978, 2000, 2006, and 2024. What drives this persistence is not operational necessity. It is doctrine. A territorial imagination that predates the occupation state itself and continues to shape its northern wars.<\/p>\n Five wars were over one hill, yet nothing was learned.<\/p>\n A border imagined before it existed<\/strong><\/p>\n The strategic pull toward the\u00a0Litani River<\/a>\u00a0did not originate in recent security debates. It has a long documentary history. In 1919, Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann argued before British prime minister David Lloyd George that the borders of a future Jewish homeland should\u00a0extend<\/a>\u00a0northward deep into Lebanon, emphasizing the economic and strategic value of water resources. The Litani, he suggested, was indispensable.<\/p>\n The first prime minister of Israel, David Ben Gurion, picked up where Weizmann left off: in 1918, he described the future state\u2019s northern frontier as the Litani; by 1937, he was\u00a0declaring<\/a>\u00a0that across the northern border \u201cthe first possibility of our expansion will come up\u201d; and by 1948, he was calling Muslim rule of Lebanon \u201cartificial and easily undermined,\u201d proposing a Christian buffer state with the Litani as its southern border. Zionist forces that year advanced into the Marjayoun district, reached the vicinity of the Litani, and occupied 14 Lebanese villages before being forced to withdraw.<\/p>\n From Weizmann\u2019s letter to Netanyahu\u2019s \u2018buffer zone\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n The most explicit articulation came in 1954, recorded in the\u00a0personal diary<\/a>\u00a0of then-Israeli prime minister Moshe Sharett. In a meeting with Ben Gurion and chief of staff Moshe Dayan, the latter proposed finding a Lebanese officer, \u201ceven just a major,\u201d who could be bribed to declare himself the savior of the Maronite population.<\/p>\n The Israeli army would then enter Lebanon, create a puppet regime, and annex everything south of the Litani. It would take a quarter century for the blueprint to materialize, but materialize it did: Saad Haddad, the South Lebanon Army (SLA), the \u201csecurity zone,\u201d and the Khiam detention center were all direct descendants of this conversation.<\/p>\n After the 1967 war, defense minister Moshe Dayan\u00a0declared<\/a>\u00a0that the occupation state had achieved \u201cprovisionally satisfying frontiers, with the exception of those with Lebanon.\u201d That exception has haunted every Israeli government since. Control of the Litani would increase the occupation state\u2019s annual water supply by roughly\u00a040 percent<\/a>.<\/p>\n Strikes on the Litani dam and the Wazzani pumping station in the final hours of the 2006 war were therefore widely interpreted as doctrinal moves rather than battlefield accidents. Across generations of Israeli leadership, the map has remained remarkably consistent. Khiam stands directly on the axis between ideological ambition and geographic limitation.<\/p>\n Renaming failure<\/strong><\/p>\n Each invasion of Lebanon has been framed as a limited security operation. \u201cOperation Litani\u201d in 1978 occupied everything south of the river and handed it to a proxy militia. The \u201csecurity zone\u201d from 1982 to 2000 formalized 18 years of occupation across 800 square kilometers. The 2006 war ended with a ground offensive aimed, once again, at the Litani. Nearly two decades later, the concept resurfaced as a proposed \u201cbuffer zone.\u201d<\/p>\n The cost is measurable: from 1982 to 2000, 1,216 Israeli soldiers were killed in Lebanon. In 34 days of war in 2006, 121 more were killed, and 50 Merkava tanks were hit. In 2024, three full brigades could\u00a0not hold<\/a>\u00a0Khiam for more than six weeks.<\/p>\n None of this has altered the doctrine. In January 2025, a settler group called \u201cUri Tsafon\u201d\u00a0called<\/a>\u00a0for Jewish civilian settlement in southern Lebanon. An Israeli army rabbi\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0soldiers: \u201cThis land is ours, the whole land, including Gaza, including Lebanon.\u201d<\/p>\n The language of early Zionist planning remains alive in contemporary discourse.\u00a0The hilltop of Khiam stands between that language and the river it has never reached.<\/p>\n Geography: Gateway and graveyard<\/strong><\/p>\n To understand why the occupation state keeps returning to Khiam, one should look at a topographic map. The town sits at 800 meters above sea level, roughly 5 kilometers from the Blue Line, with the Israeli settlement of Metula less than 1 kilometer away.<\/p>\n To the north, the road opens toward Marjayoun; to the east, the\u00a0terrain<\/a>\u00a0descends toward the Bekaa Valley. Khiam has been described as a\u00a0strategic<\/a>\u00a0gateway for a rapid ground incursion. Retired General Mounir Shehadeh\u00a0confirmed<\/a>\u00a0that capturing Khiam opens two corridors: north to Marjayoun or east into the Bekaa.<\/p>\n Together with Bint Jbeil to the west and Shamaa on the coast, Khiam forms the eastern anchor of the line the occupation state needs for a continuous \u201cbuffer zone\u201d from the border to the Mediterranean.<\/p>\n Yet the same geography also turns it into a trap. Narrow roads channel armored advances into predictable paths. Elevated terrain exposes attacking forces to anti\u2011tank fire. Dense urban structures provide concealment for defenders familiar with the landscape.<\/p>\n Over successive conflicts, resistance fighters have refined their ability to exploit these features, transforming Khiam into a recurring site of attritional warfare.<\/p>\n From torture complex to liberation symbol<\/strong><\/p>\n In 1985, the SLA converted a French-built barracks on Khiam\u2019s hilltop into a detention center. Over 15 years, some 5,000 prisoners passed through its cells. Amnesty International\u00a0documented<\/a>\u00a0systematic torture, while declassified Shin Bet documents\u00a0confirmed<\/a>\u00a0Israeli intelligence trained the SLA\u2019s interrogators.<\/p>\n The Israeli Defense Ministry\u2019s own affidavit\u00a0admitted<\/a>\u00a0Shin Bet personnel held meetings \u201cseveral times annually\u201d with Khiam\u2019s interrogators. The occupation state built Khiam\u2019s torture infrastructure, staffed its methods, and profited from its intelligence product.<\/p>\n Throughout the 1990s, Hezbollah\u00a0attacks<\/a>\u00a0inside the security zone escalated from 19 per year in 1990 to 344 by 1995.\u00a0Between 1985 and 2000, 256 Israeli soldiers were killed in combat. In May 2000, as the SLA disintegrated, Hezbollah fighters \u2013 reinforced by 3,000 civilians \u2013 stormed the prison,\u00a0freed<\/a>\u00a0144 detainees, and the occupation\u2019s proxy army collapsed entirely. The prison became a museum. Khiam became a symbol, further embedding itself in the collective memory of resistance.<\/p>\n Six years later, the occupation state bombed that symbol into rubble, widely interpreted as an attempt to erase the evidence of its crimes. On 25 July 2006, an Israeli bomb obliterated a UN observation post on the outskirts of Khiam,\u00a0killing<\/a>\u00a0four unarmed military observers. Hezbollah fighters hit up to a dozen Israeli tanks outside the town; the 366th\u00a0<\/sup>Division never completed its assigned missions.<\/p>\n In 2024, three brigades returned. Hezbollah\u00a0attacked<\/a>\u00a0Israeli troops around the town more than 20 times in 48 hours.<\/p>\n The occupation army entered only after the ceasefire, occupied for six weeks, and withdrew. Now, in March 2026, it is back \u2013 and the resistance fighters waiting in the ruins are not the same ones it faced before.<\/p>\n The evolution of resistance warfare<\/strong><\/p>\n The fighters now operating in Khiam include Hezbollah\u2019s Radwan Force \u2013 a specialized formation shaped by years of combat experience in Syria. Originating as a rapid intervention unit under the command of Imad Mughniyeh, the force developed advanced urban warfare capabilities during battles in Al\u2011Qusayr, Al\u2011Qalamoun, and Aleppo.<\/p>\n Israeli researcher Dima Adamsky has concluded that this\u00a0transformed<\/a>\u00a0the unit from advanced infantry into a commando force capable of strategic effects against a conventional military.<\/p>\n The unit\u2019s structure reflects its doctrine. According to the Alma Research Center, Radwan squads of seven to 10 operatives\u00a0deploy autonomously<\/a>\u00a0in specific geographic zones with pre-positioned supplies. Squad leaders act without central directives.<\/p>\n When an airstrike in September 2024 killed Ibrahim Aqil, the Radwan commander, along with 14 other officers, the unit absorbed the blow and continued fighting. On 5 March 2026,\u00a0Reuters<\/i>\u00a0confirmed<\/a>\u00a0the Radwan Force had redeployed south of the Litani, with Khiam cited specifically as a deployment zone. Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem\u00a0stated<\/a>\u00a0the resistance would confront a plan of \u201coccupation and expansion.\u201d<\/p>\n The Kornet and the Merkava: An asymmetric equation<\/strong><\/p>\n The 9M133 Kornet is a Russian-made laser-guided anti-tank missile with a tandem HEAT warhead that penetrates over 1,000 millimeters of armor behind ERA, at an effective range of 5.5 kilometers. It is the weapon that has turned every Israeli armored advance into southern Lebanon into a graveyard for Merkava tanks.<\/p>\n In 2006, Kornets pierced the armor of 24 Merkava tanks and destroyed at least four outright. During \u201cOperation Change of Direction 11,\u201d a column of 24 tanks from the 401st\u00a0<\/sup>Brigade drove into a prepared ambush at Wadi Saluki. Eleven tanks were hit. Eight tankers and four infantrymen were killed.<\/p>\n Israeli historian Uri Bar-Yosef called it \u201cone of the most humiliating operations in the history of the Israel Defense Forces.\u201d A former UNIFIL spokesman put it more plainly: anyone who sends a tank column through that terrain should not be a brigade commander but a cook.<\/p>\n Hezbollah\u2019s doctrine goes beyond the Kornet itself. The Jamestown Foundation has\u00a0documented<\/a>\u00a0a swarming method: fighters saturate a target with cheaper ATGMs to exhaust the Trophy active protection system, then the Kornet delivers the killing blow.<\/p>\n Fighters target the Merkava\u2019s weakest points at close range;\u00a0Haaretz<\/i>\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0that roughly one in four missiles pierced armor. The upgraded Kornet-EM extends the range to 8 kilometers and adds twin-launcher capability designed specifically to defeat Trophy through salvo fire.<\/p>\n Iran reverse-engineered the Kornet in 2015, breaking Hezbollah\u2019s dependency on the Russian-Syrian pipeline, and has since added the Almas and Badr missiles to the arsenal. What the occupation army\u00a0faces<\/a>\u00a0at Khiam is not a single weapons system, but a layered anti-armor doctrine operating on terrain purpose-built for ambush.<\/p>\n Rubble as a fortress<\/strong><\/p>\n Destroyed urban terrain favors the defender. This paradox,\u00a0documented<\/a>\u00a0by military analysts since 2006, is the core of Khiam\u2019s lethality. The rubble the occupation army created has become the architecture of its defeat: channelized kill zones, unlimited concealment, and IEDs in every pile of concrete.<\/p>\n Clausewitz\u00a0argued<\/a>\u00a0that irregular forces should remain \u201cnebulous and elusive\u201d; Mao\u00a0compressed<\/a>\u00a0it to a single rhythm: the enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy tires, we attack. At Khiam, both principles converge on the same rubble.<\/p>\n Lebanese analysts suggest resistance units sometimes allow advancing forces to penetrate 2 to 3 kilometers into devastated neighborhoods before triggering coordinated attacks involving improvised explosive devices, missile teams, and drones. Rotational deployment ensures fresh fighters remain available while exhausted units regroup behind secondary defensive lines.<\/p>\n An Israeli minister\u00a0admitted<\/a>\u00a0the resistance stripped the military of the element of surprise. Behind the front line, a second defensive line is already organized: when the Lebanese army withdrew from south of the Litani, Hezbollah fighters immediately pushed forward.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/thecradle-main.oss-eu-central-1.aliyuncs.com\/public\/articles_media\/14a7cc70-1f09-11f1-bb47-00163e02c055.png\")