Israeli airstrikes targeting the outskirts of Mansouri (Sour) on 12 Aug. 2026. (Credit: Muntasser Abdallah/L'Orient Today)
SOUTH LEBANON — Israeli forces demolished several public buildings and homes in Zawtar Sharqieh, in the Nabatieh district on Wednesday, including the municipal building, a public school, a kindergarten, a dispensary and another building, as Israeli attacks and demolitions continued across south Lebanon, prompting condemnation from the Lebanese Army and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam.
The criticism did little to sway Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz from his position in favor of a prolonged occupation of the South. During a tour of Israeli forces in Lebanese villages, he said the army “will not withdraw” from the area.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army announced that soldiers from the Golani Brigade had left the area around Beaufort Castle for a “period of rest and recovery,” while maintaining “their level of readiness for future missions” after “around 50 days of operations” in the area.
In response to the destruction unfolding in the village, the Lebanese Army accused Israeli forces of “violating existing agreements and international law” and said the attacks were “hindering” its deployment in the South and preventing residents from returning to their villages.
Meanwhile, Lebanese Army commander-in-chief Gen. Rodolph Haykal said the army would not abandon its mission of defending “every inch” of Lebanese territory, during a live-fire training exercise held in the hills of Brital, in the Baalbek district, according to an army statement. “Those who do not resemble their army do not resemble their homeland,” he added.
Shortly beforehand, the mayor of Zawtar Sharqieh told L’Orient-Le Jour that he had asked Lebanese officials for help to “save what remained” of the town, saying that “no serious measures have been taken to put an end to this destruction.”
Israeli forces also continued their military operations elsewhere in the South, carrying out three airstrikes within around 30 minutes on the outskirts of Mansouri, in the Sour district. The town, located on the edge of the de facto “buffer zone” established by Israel, has been in the Israeli army’s sights for several weeks and was the subject of an evacuation notice last Wednesday, the first of its kind since the mid-June cease-fire.
In Kafra, in the Bint Jbeil district, an Israeli drone strike at dawn targeted a site usually used for religious gatherings during the Shiite Ashoura commemoration, according to a resident. The strike hit the site directly and caused a fire. No injuries were reported.
Israeli soldiers also set fire to homes in Haddatha, in the same area, while an Israeli drone dropped explosive substances over the Aita al-Jabal forest. In the Hasbaya district, in the eastern sector, an Israeli force consisting of a Caterpillar D9 bulldozer and a Merkava tank advanced toward the outskirts of Kfar Shuba.
Ali Taher heights remain under fire
Israel continued its attacks on the strategic Ali Taher heights in the Nabatieh district overnight and into Wednesday, according to L’Orient Today’s regional correspondent.
Israeli artillery fired white phosphorus munitions at the site around 7 a.m. Wednesday, after shelling the area at around 11 p.m. Tuesday and again at 1 a.m. The hill overlooks Nabatieh, and its capture would effectively mean the fall of the city. It is surrounded by Israeli forces, which accuse Hezbollah of maintaining a command center there.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, who visited southern Lebanon on Wednesday, also reaffirmed his determination to maintain troops in the occupied “buffer zone,” as well as in Syria and Gaza.
“As the prime minister and I have made clear, we are not withdrawing from this security zone” — the term Israel uses to describe the strip of territory it occupies — Katz said, according to his office. “We will clear this area ... We will under no circumstances withdraw from the security zones: neither in Lebanon, nor in Syria, nor in Gaza,” he insisted.
Amid Katz’s statements and the continuing attacks on southern Lebanon, Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam denounced Israeli justifications that “do not withstand any logic.”
“What Israel is doing in Mansouri, Zawtar Sharqieh, Kfar Tibnit and other villages in southern Lebanon, in terms of attacks, incursions, leveling operations and the systematic destruction of homes, residential neighborhoods, infrastructure, government buildings and places of worship, constitutes a grave violation of the principles and rules of international law and international humanitarian law,” Salam, a former president of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), said on X.
He also said that portraying “villages and localities, with their homes, their neighborhoods, their government buildings, their public facilities, their places of worship and their infrastructure” as collectively constituting “military installations” is a claim that withstands “no logic” and “cannot serve as a pretext for their destruction, the displacement of their inhabitants and preventing them from returning home.”
He finally stressed that “Lebanon’s sovereignty, the security of its population, as well as the right of residents of southern Lebanon to return to their land and rebuild their villages are not negotiable."
Reporting contributed by our correspondent in the South, Muntasser Abdallah
