Once again, the sirens have sounded across the Galilee. Once again, families in Kiryat Shmona, Metula, and the kibbutzim of the north have been forced into shelters as Hezbollah rockets rain down on Israeli soil. This latest barrage is not an aberration. It is the inevitable consequence of a security doctrine that has run its course. The Israel Defense Forces must advance to the Litani River, and Israel must establish sovereignty over the territory south of it, not another temporary buffer zone, not another “security strip,” but permanent Israeli control.

What we have today along our northern border is a catastrophe waiting to happen, or more accurately, a catastrophe that keeps happening. In the past two years alone, this is the fifth time the IDF has entered southern Lebanon to push out hostile forces, each time at the cost of Israeli soldiers’ lives. And each time, after our forces withdraw, the same population returns, the same infrastructure is rebuilt, and the same threat reconstitutes itself. We send our young men and women to bleed for the ground we then hand back. This is not a security policy. It is a ritual of failure.

The Lebanese government has proven, time and again, that it is incapable of honoring its agreements. Resolution 1701, which was supposed to ensure Hezbollah would not rearm south of the Litani, has been a dead letter since the day it was signed. The Lebanese Armed Forces have neither the capacity nor the will to disarm Hezbollah. We have trusted the international community and the Lebanese government to deliver security, and they have delivered nothing but broken promises. In the Middle East, we must speak the language the region understands. Ambiguity is interpreted as weakness, withdrawal as defeat, and temporary presence as an invitation to wait us out.

Hezbollah has been a fixture of Lebanese warfare for forty-four years. It is not a passing phenomenon that can be negotiated away. It draws its ideological sustenance and material support from the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Shiite communities of southern Lebanon are not passive bystanders in this dynamic, but the specific population living in southern Lebanon has demonstrated, decade after decade, that its loyalties lie with Hezbollah and with Tehran. To pretend otherwise is a dangerous fantasy that costs Israeli lives.

Some will argue that a reinforced security zone would suffice. History says otherwise. The fundamental problem with a security strip is that it erodes over time. You cannot hold a strip of territory indefinitely without sovereignty. Borders shift, enforcement weakens, political will fades, and the enemy creeps back. A security strip is a temporary measure masquerading as a long-term solution, and in the Middle East, temporary measures become permanent vulnerabilities.

Consider the Golan Heights. Why has Israel neutralized the threat from that direction? Because Israel did not create a “security strip.” It took the territory and settled it. Israeli communities, Israeli law, and Israeli sovereignty. These transformed the Golan from a perpetual launching pad into one of the quietest sectors on our borders. If you want genuine, lasting security in a territory, you must take it. The same principle applies to southern Lebanon: if you want security there, you have to take southern Lebanon.

Sovereignty would also yield immediate strategic advantages. Israel’s northern border would shrink from roughly one hundred and twenty kilometers to sixty, cutting in half the perimeter that must be defended. The threat of rockets and anti-tank missiles launched from positions meters from the border fence would be pushed back to a distance allowing meaningful early warning. The residents of northern Israel would finally live without the constant shadow of the next barrage.

We cannot continue to tolerate this looming threat over our citizens. Every time we send the IDF into southern Lebanon, expel hostile forces, and then invite them back, we tell our soldiers their sacrifices were provisional, that the ground they bled to take will be returned to the enemy within months. Forty-four years of Hezbollah, five operations in two years, and countless broken cease-fires have taught us everything we need to know. Israel must take its sovereignty into its own hands, advance to the Litani, and assert permanent control. This is not adventurism. It is the most fundamental act of self-defense: ensuring that those who seek to destroy us cannot do so from our doorstep.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)