Defense Ministry releases footage of 2000 Lebanon retreat

Film shows Israeli troops returning to border under Hezbollah fire and demolition of iconic Beaufort outpost

By ToI Staff 21 May 2015, 11:31 am

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Defense Ministry footage of the demolition of the Beaufort outpost in the southern Lebanon security zone on the night of May 24, 2000. The video, which was released 15 years after the withdrawal, also shows Israeli troops leaving Lebanon under Hezbollah fire. (Screen capture: YouTube)

Fifteen years after the Israeli army withdrew from Lebanon in May 2000, the Defense Ministry released footage of the last convoys returning to the border under fire and the demolition of the infamous Beaufort outpost.

The last Israeli troops withdrew from southern Lebanon on May 24, 2000, ending the Israeli army’s 18-year presence in the security zone. The Israeli army demolished the Beaufort outpost with explosives as they withdrew.

Army officials had planned to demolish another outpost in the same area, the Dlaat outpost, at the same time. Dlaat was spared due to a technical problem and was later demolished by Hezbollah forces, Haaretz reported.

The video, which had been kept until now in the Defense Ministry’s archives, shows a convoy of troops leaving the outpost just moments before the explosion that demolished it. The Israeli troops can be seen moving toward the border under Hezbollah fire.

The Israeli army’s stay in southern Lebanon from June 1982 to May 2000 claimed the lives of 1,216 Israeli soldiers.

The ongoing fighting and the mounting number of soldiers killed gave rise to increasing public pressure to withdraw from Lebanon, leading then-prime minister Ehud Barak to promise that the withdrawal would take place within a year of his taking office in 1999, according to a report on Channel 2’s website.

The withdrawal was seen as harried and chaotic, as Hezbollah rushed to take over areas left by Israel and members of the Jerusalem-backed Southern Lebanon Army and their families fled south to escape the country.

During the demolition of the Beaufort outpost, the Israeli army was careful to spare the ruins of the 12th-century Crusader castle for which it was named.

Beaufort castle. (photo credit: Yossi Zamir/Flash90)

The castle, which was taken during the first Lebanon war in 1982 in a battle that claimed many Israeli casualties, became a symbol of the Israeli army’s presence in Lebanon, just as its evacuation in 2000 became a symbol for retreat.

Joseph Cedar’s 2007 film “Beaufort,” which told the story of the last Israeli soldiers stationed at the outpost, was nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Foreign Film category.

Soldiers who fought in southern Lebanon between 1982 and 2000 are waging a struggle to have their tours of duty recognized as wartime service, Haaretz reported.