Gantz okays recognizing Israeli occupation of south Lebanon as military campaign

Defense Minister Benny Gantz endorses the army’s recommendation to officially recognize Israel’s 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon as an official military campaign, leaving one last approval needed before the move can be implemented.

Until now, this campaign has had no official designation, something a small but vocal group of veterans have fought to change.

If given final approval by a ministerial committee — as is expected — this period will be officially known as “The Security Zone in the Lebanon Campaign” and people who took part in it will receive pins acknowledging their contribution, putting it on par with the Israel Defense Forces’ other wars and major operations.

Gantz, a former IDF chief of staff, served as the liaison between the Israeli military and the South Lebanon Army in 2000 when Israel withdrew from the area, ending an 18-year occupation of a strip of southern Lebanon — totaling about 10 percent of Lebanese territory — that had been aimed at defending northern Israel from attack by terror groups, notably the Iran-backed Hezbollah. Gantz, then a brigadier general, was famously the last Israeli soldier to leave the security zone.

“As someone who served for 22 years in Lebanon, and was the last person to leave the security zone, as defense minister of the State of Israel I feel immense privilege and a moral debt to thousands of soldiers who served under me to approve the awarding of this pin,” Gantz says.

— Judah Ari Gross