Israel Destroys Litani Bridges as Lebanon’s President Warns: This Is the Prelude to Invasion

Five bridges destroyed. A million people displaced. Over a thousand dead. Israel has systematically severed southern Lebanon from the rest of the country, and Lebanon’s president says the ground troops are next. He is almost certainly right.

The Qasmiya Bridge over the Litani River was the fifth to fall. Israeli jets struck it on Saturday, collapsing a crossing that had served as the last major route connecting southern Lebanon to the north. Defence Minister Israel Katz had ordered the military to destroy every crossing over the Litani and every structure near the border. The order is being carried out with methodical precision.

The military logic is transparent. The Litani River runs roughly 30 kilometres from the Israeli border. Everything south of it is the zone that UN Security Council Resolution 1701 was supposed to keep free of Hezbollah fighters after the 2006 war. That resolution failed. Hezbollah rebuilt. And now Israel intends to do by force what diplomacy could not: clear the area entirely.

The Invasion Plan

According to Israeli officials cited by Axios, the IDF is planning a “massive” ground operation to seize the entire area south of the Litani. Military spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin said the expansion would begin “within the coming week.” The operation would be the largest Israeli ground invasion of Lebanon since 2006 — and potentially larger, given the scale of the preparations.

The bridge strikes are the preparatory phase. By destroying crossings over the Litani, Israel is cutting Hezbollah’s supply lines and preventing reinforcements from reaching the south. It is also trapping the civilian population — those who have not already fled — in a zone that is about to become a battlefield. The parallels with the early stages of the Gaza operation are impossible to ignore.

The Human Cost

Lebanon’s Health Ministry reports that 1,029 people have been killed and more than one million displaced in just three weeks of conflict. The destruction is concentrated in the south, but airstrikes have hit Beirut’s southern suburbs and the Bekaa Valley. Hospitals in the south are overwhelmed. Aid deliveries have been disrupted by the destruction of road infrastructure. The bridge strikes have made the logistics of humanitarian response even more difficult.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun — no relation to Hezbollah, and a figure who has tried to position himself as a unifying national leader — called the bridge attacks “a dangerous escalation and flagrant violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty” and said they were “a prelude to a ground invasion.” He is stating what everyone can see. The bridges are down. The troops are massing. The invasion is coming.

Hezbollah’s Response

Hezbollah has not been passive. On Saturday, a Hezbollah attack killed one Israeli soldier in northern Israel. Rocket and drone attacks have continued throughout the conflict, hitting communities across the Galilee. But the group is fighting on two fronts — against Israel from Lebanon and as part of Iran’s broader axis against the US-Israeli coalition. Its resources are stretched. Its supply lines are being severed. And the ground operation that is about to begin will test whether Hezbollah can do what it did in 2006: turn a ground invasion into a grinding, bloody stalemate that forces Israel to withdraw.

The 2006 war lasted 34 days and ended in what most analysts considered a strategic draw. This war is already in its 23rd day with no diplomatic process in sight. The scale of the coming ground operation suggests that Israel is not planning for a limited incursion. It is planning to redraw the map of southern Lebanon by force. The bridges are just the beginning.