February 19, 2025
By Nasser Kandil
• The occupying entity’s War Minister, Yisrael Katz, claims that the five remaining positions where the occupation army is stationed constitute a buffer zone and a security barrier preventing attacks on the occupied settlements in northern Palestine. However, in military terms, a buffer zone requires a contiguous geographical stretch along the border with sufficient depth to prevent fire from reaching its target and to hinder the movement of fighters. Most crucially, such a zone must be devoid of civilian presence along its entire length. None of these conditions apply to the occupation’s remaining positions, especially given the exposed areas along the border near public roads connecting southern Lebanese villages, many of which directly overlook settlements. The occupation fully understands that the resistance is composed of the very people from these villages, including those along the border, who fought and defeated it for weeks. If they chose to do so again, they could. If they sought to acquire weaponry capable of striking deep into the entity, they could deliver it to the occupied strip, which was once considered a complete buffer zone.
• The real purpose of occupying these hills is clear: to maintain the illusion of victory for an internal audience that does not believe the government’s claims of triumph. The occupation of high ground overlooking most northern settlements is not to prevent attacks but to block the installation of massive billboards bearing the resistance leader’s image or the raising of giant resistance flags visible to every settler below.
• If we examine the post-war map, both north and south, we find a reality that reflects the true balance of power shaped by the war, regardless of the damage each side inflicted on the other. While the occupation has caused immense suffering to the resistance and its people, it has also obscured its own losses at the hands of the resistance.
• The new map tells a revealing story: the Gaza Envelope and northern Palestine have become depopulated zones, despite the occupation leaders’ desperate attempts to lure settlers back. Israeli media commentaries acknowledge that remaining on these hills will not encourage resettlement but rather complicate it, as settlers fear that continued occupation of these positions will provoke further military operations. In military strategy, particularly for the occupying entity, armies do not commit forces where no civilian population exists. The transformation of the north and south into empty zones resembling the Jordan Valley makes them militarily vulnerable areas – soft zones rather than true defensive lines. For the first time, the resistance has created its own buffer zones inside the occupied territories of 1948.
• A buffer zone? Yes. A decisive victory? Yes. But several Israeli commentators say it’s a victory against us, not for us. Yet there are those who don’t even read, and if they do, they refuse to understand, and if they understand, they refuse to admit it.
