IDF: As northern security improves, need to discuss practicalities of residents returning to border

The IDF said on Tuesday that as the military continues its progress in destroying Hezbollah military assets near the Israel-Lebanon border, a detailed discussion needs to move forward with 60,000 evacuated Israeli northern residents about the practicalities of them returning to their homes.

IDF sources said that weakening Hezbollah was one component of the residents' return, but receiving assessments of what they needed in terms of repairs, new infrastructure, and reorganizing the northern border corridor were separate civilian activities that needed to start moving along.

On Monday, Yisrael Hayom reported that Maj. Gen. Uri Gordon had told northern resident regional council leaders that they should start working on a return to their towns around the end of the Sukkot holiday.

Gordon and the IDF eventually said that he had not given a set deadline but was merely trying to jump-start their process to return now that the invasion of Lebanon was well underway and after the subject had been ignored for most of the last year since their evacuation.

Resident of the North have felt forgotten

For much of the war, these 60,000 residents slammed the government for forgetting them while the country's attention focused on Gaza, the South, and the victims and hostages from Hamas's October 7, 2023 invasion.

Since the invasion of Lebanon on September 30, there has been an ongoing debate about whether the IDF will finish its mission of clearing Hezbollah's near-border weapons by mid-late October or whether it will remain for months or longer as a negotiating chip to try to force Hezbollah to become less of a threat to Israel.

There is still no specific strategy that has been articulated for getting Hezbollah to permanently stop firing rockets at Israel or to prevent them from eventually returning to southern Lebanon after an Israeli withdrawal, as occurred after the IDF's withdrawal from the area in 2000.

At the same time, no senior Israeli officials have any interest in permanently occupying Lebanon and the longer the IDF remains there, the greater pressure there will be from the US to exit.

The IDF also faces a harsh upcoming Lebanese mountainous winter and US elections on November 5 as potential exit deadlines.

That said, there is a debate within the IDF about whether the military will be significantly disadvantaged by the winter and the loss of significant aspects of its air support to inclement weather, or whether IDF infantry training is superior enough for inclement weather to Hezbollah that Israel will obtain other advantages.

Next, the IDF noted it had found another tunnel that crossed through the UN-ratified Blue Line and was eliminating the tunnel.

In fact, the IDF said that it has had control of the tunnel since some unspecified time even before the invasion,but kept the matter under wraps until the invasion expanded.