As Lebanese Army withdraws from Southern Lebanon, Hezbollah Fills Void

In the face of relentless Israeli bombings and assassinations, the Lebanese Army has “redeployed and re-positioned” itself from the south, a Lebanese Army statement said.

“As Israeli attacks continue indiscriminately targeting both military personnel and civilians in various regions, the army leadership emphasizes the seriousness of incitement and questioning of the military institution’s role by some media outlets and social media platforms, and the negative repercussions this has on the population and internal tensions,” the statement said.

It must be noted that the Lebanese Army has not fired a single shot at the advancing Israelis though itself has taken casualties from Israeli fire.

Hezbollah moves in to Southern Lebanon

The Hezbollah members fighting in the area south of the Litani River are residents of the area's villages and towns, supported by fighters from the Bekaa Valley and other regions, including foreigners, a media report said. "These fighters moved to the battle zones after the start of the war on Iran, and they arrived without weapons," the Nidaa al-Watan newspaper quoted a Lebanese official as saying.

Hezbollah didn't need to transport fighters with their weapons; they simply went to the south and deployed to areas where weapons were already present, especially after the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps had restructured them and the party had rebuilt its infrastructure, the report explained.

Refugees fill up Beirut’s streets

Israel's attacks and evacuation orders have emptied villages in south Lebanon and pushed almost the entire population of the southern suburbs into Beirut.

"The scale and intensity of this is just unprecedented," said Dalal Harb, the spokesperson for the United Nations refugee agency in Lebanon. She said the figure of 1 million displaced is almost certainly an under-count because it misses anyone who has not formally registered as displaced with the Ministry of Social Affairs.

The government has converted hundreds of public schools into shelters and pitched tents for displaced families beneath the bleachers of the city's main sports stadium. Charities have scrambled to help, with one refashioning an abandoned slaughterhouse destroyed in Beirut's 2020 port explosion into a dormitory for almost 1,000 displaced people.