Settler group claims to have entered Lebanon and established outpost; IDF denies it
Far-right Uri Tzafon Movement says families set up tents in southern Lebanon, but military says group’s claims are false and that the settler activists never crossed the border
Members of a small far-right Israeli group advocating the annexation and settlement of southern Lebanon claimed on Sunday to have crossed the border and established an outpost settlement inside Lebanese territory, but the military said that the group’s claims were false and that they never left Israel.
The group was led by the Uri Tzafon Movement, a religious Zionist organization that has held virtual conferences calling for Jewish settlement in southern Lebanon, in areas which it claims belong to the Jewish people.
The group claimed that “Families from the movement for settlement in southern Lebanon entered yesterday to settle the land. The families set up tents, planted trees, and also created a memorial corner in memory of Yehudah Dror Yahalom,” an IDF soldier from a West Bank settlement who was killed in combat in southern Lebanon in October.
According to the far-right Channel 14 news site, the group claimed they set up tents in the area of Maroun al-Ras, a Shiite village less than a mile from the Israeli border.
Responding to a request for comment on the group’s claims, a military spokesperson told The Times of Israel that the settler activists never crossed the border into Lebanon, and the whole incident took place inside Israel.
The activists set up an encampment near an Israeli border community and were eventually dispersed by soldiers, as the area was a closed military zone, according to the IDF.
The area the group claims to have entered is currently controlled by the IDF, as part of the ceasefire deal between Israel and the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah, which was signed last month.
The IDF has until January to withdraw from southern Lebanon, where troops have been operating since October to drive Hezbollah from the border region, and cede responsibility for the area to the Lebanese army.
Israeli officials have said forces will be withdrawn gradually as it ensures that the agreement is being enforced.
The ceasefire halted 14 months of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, which began when the terror group, unprovoked, began firing into Israel on October 8, 2023, saying it was acting in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. The relentless attacks forced the displacement of some 60,000 residents of northern Israel.
The radical Nachala settlement movement, which has called for Jewish settlement in both Gaza and Lebanon, said on Sunday that “the answer to the chaos in Syria is the taking of territory” and the establishment of Jewish settlements.
“Jewish settlement is the only thing that will bring regional stability and the security of Israel,” the group claimed, and that settlements should be established in “Gaza, Lebanon, the entire Golan Heights, including the Syrian Golan.”
“The land of Israel is the property of out ancestors and it must not be abandoned to foreigners,” it added.
Support for Jewish settlement in Lebanon remains very small, and no politicians or major figures outside of fringe settler groups have called for their establishment.
No settlements were established in southern Lebanon during Israel’s 1982 – 2000 occupation of the area, when the IDF maintained a security zone there.
This is in contrast to calls to settle Gaza, which has relatively broad support from much of the Israeli far-right, most notably Finance Minster Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who both have repeatedly advocated for the idea.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly denied that Israel intends to resettle the Gaza Strip.
