The IDF's 7th Armored Brigade breached the path toward the Litani River in southern Lebanon and moved toward the first line of Lebanese villages after receiving clearance from the political echelon. The brigade's commander, Col. Shaul Yisraeli, described the operation as a carefully engineered advance through villages, river crossings and underground positions, with the stated aim of preventing raids against northern Israeli communities and anti-tank missile fire. The result, as described in his own account, was a ground maneuver that turned southern Lebanon into a battlefield of bulldozers, tanks, drones and buried fortifications while civilians lived under the machinery of state war.
The State's Monopoly on the Ground
Yisraeli said the brigade successfully breached strategic pathways to the Litani River while neutralizing subterranean "cities of refuge" constructed by Hezbollah over the last two decades. He said the brigade selected the most experienced HEO (Heavy Engineering Equipment) operators to breach routes en route to the river, calling it one of the most complex engineering tasks of the ground maneuver in southern Lebanon. He added that the bulldozer at the front of the force pushed forward until its blade touched the waters of the Litani River, after which tank crews advanced along the route that had just been breached.
He said the brigade's engineering companies received no recognition for what they do, then praised non-commissioned officers and engineering force foremen as vital as nuclear engineers. He said they executed engineering maneuvers that were thought to be impossible, creating the conditions for the attack, and said their company commanders were heroes too. He also said the 7th Brigade killed 68 terrorists in recent weeks, language that reduces the dead to a category in the military ledger while the ground beneath them remains a place of villages, crossings and homes.
Yisraeli said the 7th Brigade was the first to enter combat after the fragile ceasefire with Hezbollah. He said the brigade launched a maneuver toward the first line of Lebanese villages, including Taybe, Markaba, and Rabb El Thalathine, and that the Golani Brigade joined in the second stage. He said the dramatic phase came with the capture of Hezbollah's "city of refuge" in Qantara.
He said the infrastructure there had been built over roughly 20 years and that the Iranians constructed it alongside Hezbollah. According to him, it included rooms, organized weaponry, firing and anti-tank positions facing Misgav Am, and a launch base for raids into Israeli territory. He said Qantara sits directly above the Wadi Salouqi and a junction connecting to the Litani, effectively commanding the villages of Froun and Ghandouriyeh.
War by Engineering, Not Just Firepower
Yisraeli said the fighters of the 7th Brigade later faced an unprecedented attack involving hundreds of suicide drones. In the third stage of the fighting, he said, the brigade's battalions joined forces with the Golani Brigade to capture all the terrain overlooking the Litani and the Beaufort ridge, conducting raids toward Ghandouriyeh to locate and destroy terror infrastructure above and below ground. He said, "The ground was burning," and added that the area was only fully captured in the last two weeks, leaving dozens of terrorists dead.
He said an additional tank company, operating alongside the Commando Brigade, attacked Hezbollah infrastructure north of Beaufort, including structures dug deep into the ground from which anti-tank missile launchers were aimed at the Metula area and the Galilee Panhandle. He said dozens of anti-tank missiles were fired at the forces in the initial attacks and described the enemy as deployed in highly established, widespread ambushes across the terrain.
Explosive drones, he said, had become a central threat and a new one dealt with every day through tactics and drills. He said he hoped the situation would serve as a wake-up call for the state to invest in what the IDF had requested for many years regarding a solution to the drone threat. He said the state needed to "snap out of it" and move this forward, adding that he was confident superiority over the threat would be established gradually.
Ahead of the maneuver toward Wadi Salouqi, Yisraeli said the brigade studied the complications encountered during the Battle of Salouqi in the Second Lebanon War, which the key dates place at the 20th anniversary. He said the mission's purpose nearly 20 years ago had not been sufficiently clear, but this time the volume of munitions fired at the forces was larger and more varied. He said the brigade gathered advance intelligence using drones, which located Hezbollah explosive charges, booby traps, and anti-tank launchers aimed at bottleneck crossings. That intelligence, he said, allowed platoon and tank commanders to see the routes and their vulnerabilities.
He said robots were deployed only afterward. When Hezbollah operatives opened fire, he said, Air Force forces identified them and struck with high precision. He described advance raids by Egoz fighters as "neutralizing ambush components - dismantling the adversary's system: charges, anti-tank missiles, and lookouts, on the way to Hezbollah's cities of refuge."
Who Gets Secured, Who Gets Flattened
Yisraeli said the 7th Brigade's ground maneuver exposed Hezbollah's "cities of refuge." He said some were dug deep into the earth to grant immunity from airstrikes and that engineering mapping showed the same contractor built all of them. He said the rooms, corridors, launch sites, and anti-tank missile firing slits were all built to the same standard. He said locating the cities of refuge in Qantara and Beaufort was faster than in Gaza because the tunnels in Lebanon were larger, and that once the edge of the thread was found, it was easier to complete the mapping and lead to their destruction or neutralization.
He said the brigade arrived highly prepared, with more accurate intelligence. He said Qantara was longer and had not been reached during Operation Northern Arrows in September 2024, which the key dates place at the second anniversary. He said the opportunity now was to deepen the achievement and the maneuver. He said each of these cities of refuge was 1.2 kilometers long and the other 700 meters, with dozens of rooms dug deep into the ground and packed with weapons. He said operatives emerged from there, were engaged, and were killed.
Yisraeli said Hezbollah organized southern Lebanon as a multi-layered combat system, with one line meant to strike the Israeli home front, another serving as a staging ground for the Radwan Force before a raid into the Galilee, another designed to delay the IDF's ground maneuver, and another used for storing weapons, ammunition, or housing reserve fighters. He said the systems were built through Iranian-Lebanese cooperation above and below ground and incorporated fortifications designed to be immune to Israeli Air Force strikes. He said fortified infrastructure was found directly on riverbeds, with localized segments of about 80 to 100 meters, and that atop them sat a system of ambushes consisting of anti-tank cells and drones. He said some subterranean components were more than 200 meters, allowing fighters to withstand airstrikes, emerge, harass IDF forces, and retreat back underground.
He said Hezbollah's use of suicide drones would continue to intensify, with explosives becoming heavier and operational ranges expanding. He said drones had become a significant component that required changes in operational patterns. He said there was still a long way to go, but also said the solution could already be envisioned, including low-tech measures like nets. He said the way the IDF maneuvered was changing too, and that industrial technologies would eventually help counter the threat.
Yisraeli also discussed the tank's role in modern warfare, saying it had long ceased to be just a tank. He called it a multi-sensor system, a large armored vehicle that brings energy inward to locate and destroy the enemy. He said many systems would be operated from it in the future, including drones, and said it shortens the process and closes the loop between collection and attack. He said the tank generates C4I capabilities and target acquisition by virtue of its presence and can bring both kinetics and directed-energy weapons into the battlefield.
He said a Hezbollah terrorist had recently infiltrated all of the IDF's defensive lines in southern Lebanon, reached the Moshav of Margaliot by crossing the fence, and opened fire with a pistol until he was neutralized. He said the incident should prompt examination of the defense system and the way all forces are deployed. He said the IDF was currently more occupied with attack and maneuvering forward, but that defense of the communities remained essential. He said isolated terrorists from Gaza and Lebanon were an issue the IDF would handle and that intelligence collection existed for that purpose.
Yisraeli said there was logic in reducing the tenures of battalion commanders and that he had recommended such a change to his corps commander and division commander. He said he did not know whether the war was at the beginning, middle or end, and said reality had changed completely.
Toward the end of the interview, he said the wives of the battalion commanders were his greatest heroes. He said battalion commanders carried the most complex burden, including continuous combat, while their wives were raising young children. He said he did not know how to promise them solutions, only how to empathize and appreciate them, and said that was what the entire nation of Israel needed to do. He also said the IDF needed to better plan its operational pattern during prolonged war and that predictable frameworks were important even in difficult conditions.
A separate report said that as JD Vance arrived for talks in Switzerland, Iran was sending mixed messages and seeking to consolidate its influence in Lebanon. It said the past few days had demonstrated the challenge posed by the Israeli military's continued presence across southern Lebanon. It also said that on Saturday afternoon, U.S. Vice President JD Vance expressed optimism about the talks with Iran.