Since the U.S. and Iran agreed to a temporary ceasefire, on Tuesday night, Israel has continued pummelling Lebanon with air strikes, killing more than three hundred people on Wednesday and wounding over a thousand more. After the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran, in February, Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shia paramilitary group in Lebanon, fired missiles at Israel; this was followed by a heavy Israeli response across the country, and a ground invasion of southern Lebanon. Israel has forced out over a million people from their homes, and killed more than a thousand, in a country of some five million, vowing to hold many of these areas as buffer zones. (The Israeli defense minister, Israel Katz, has compared the strategy to the one his country used in Gaza.) And the New York Times reported that Israel has recently made allowances for religious groups other than Shia Muslims to remain in the “evacuation zone.” Meanwhile, Israel and Lebanon are set to hold talks next week, but Iran and the United States have not yet reached an agreement on whether the ceasefire covers Israeli operations in Lebanon.

I recently spoke by phone with Maha Yahya, the director of the Carnegie Endowment’s Middle East Center, who lives in Lebanon and was in Beirut when we talked. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed what Israel is really trying to accomplish in Lebanon, the changing political fortunes of Hezbollah, and how Lebanese civilians are dealing with the war.

It seems that Israel has attacked areas across Lebanon, including Beirut, with huge civilian populations. Can you talk about what the past few days have been like?

Devastating. It’s not just about the bombs dropping around us but, also, about the anxiety, the frantic calling of friends and family to make sure they’re fine. The areas that were hit were considered relatively safe, to the extent that you can be safe in a war, but they were considered relatively safe. There’s no predominant military presence in these areas.

By military presence, you mean Hezbollah presence?

Hezbollah, yes. And I’m not describing the lack of a military presence to justify that this means it’s O.K. to hit certain areas, but not these areas. But, still, there is no predominant military presence of Hezbollah or any other political/military/non-state actor in these areas. So it was quite a shock to have entire residential buildings flattened in the space of minutes, a hundred air strikes or so in the space of ten minutes across Lebanon. It was really shocking. And then came the air strike at 7:00 P.M., in Beirut, which was the final air strike they did in the evening on Wednesday that also brought down an entire residential building. They’re still looking for survivors now. So I feel like I’m still shell-shocked, frankly.

I appreciate you telling people that. I’ll turn to some broader questions now. We talked several weeks ago about Israel and Lebanon, but can you tell people what has changed, and what Israel has done in this war so far in southern Lebanon?

They’re now occupying significant chunks of the south of Lebanon. They’ve ordered the mass evacuation of almost fifteen per cent of Lebanese territory. More than a million people have been displaced, and counting. Many of those will not be able to return. In a short time, half a million of those people were told to leave. So there’s that aspect of it. But there’s a sense that there is a deliberate ethnic cleansing of the Shia populations in the south. And I use this term very carefully, but that’s the impression that we all have, given the nature of the evacuation orders and the demographic nature of the towns and villages that are being evacuated.

What is it specifically that makes you use that term?

In the south, most villages are predominantly Shias. You also have villages that are mixed, and several that are predominantly Christian and Sunni too. Lebanon is a diverse country. I often talk about Lebanon as a regional public good. Frankly, it’s the one country in the region that, for all its ills, is a place where you have intersectarian relationships. People are forced to deal with each other, whether they want to or not. It’s a plural society. Israel’s evacuation orders have hit most of the south. They’ve asked all the villages south of the Litani River to leave, but now also the villages south of the Zahrani River, too. The predominant population there is also Shia. Plus, they’re dynamiting many of these villages. Last week, they dynamited a village that’s been around since the Roman era.

So the possibility of going back home to tend to your land, to live, is just not there anymore. On top of that, there is a clear attempt, and this was clear from last year, from the 2024 conflict, to depopulate the south. When you uproot more than sixty thousand olive trees, when you drop white phosphorus on agricultural land, rendering it unusable, which means that even people who are allowed to go back cannot go back, then people don’t have the economic livelihood that they had before. Most of these people are in agriculture. They’re farmers. So all of this adds up to literally depopulating areas in the south and kicking some of the Shias out.

There have been reports in the media that some other ethnic sects in southern Lebanon have been allowed to stay despite evacuation orders. Is that something you’ve heard as well?

We know that is true. It is mostly the predominantly Christian areas or Christian villages that have been allowed to stay. And they wanted to stay, and said so loud and clear: We’re not leaving because we’re terrified we may not be able to come back. The I.D.F. later said, “Well, if you don’t have Hezbollah fighters, fine. We’ll allow you to stay.”

What is happening today in the south is triggering a lot of anxiety for southerners because they saw what happened in Gaza. People’s homes are completely destroyed. People in Gaza were not allowed to go home. The memory of the Palestinian Nakba is also there. People left thinking they’d go back to their homes, but were never allowed to go back. We still have Palestinian refugees in Lebanon from that period. So, for the Lebanese, they’re terrified that once they leave, they may not be allowed to go back.

Is the stated Israeli reason for this that Shia communities in southern Lebanon are actually housing Hezbollah fighters and weapons, or is the idea that the Shia community more broadly gives political support to Hezbollah and therefore is a threat?

I think it’s a mix of both. There is a sense of collective punishment. You have two political parties that predominantly represent the Shia community, Amal Movement and Hezbollah. Not all the Shiites in Lebanon are supporters of Hezbollah. So there is a sense of collective punishment when you’re kicking a religious sect and saying, “No, you’ve probably supported Hezbollah, therefore you’re not allowed to come back. You’re guilty by default somehow.” As to the idea that many of these villages harbor Hezbollah, many of the Hezbollah fighters come from these villages. And, for them, they’re defending their land. They’re there to defend their land. I’m talking about the ones who are fighting now.

But this does not in any shape or form justify Hezbollah dragging Lebanon into this conflict, which was a conflict that everyone here was desperate to stay out of. That decision was made by Tehran in an attempt to turn Lebanon into another battlefront.

How much resistance is Hezbollah putting up on the ground? And, secondly, it seemed like the central government, before the war, had finally gotten more serious about disarming Hezbollah than it ever had before, but how has that gone in the last month or so? Is there an effort by the Lebanese state to disarm Hezbollah? As you say, a lot of Lebanese people are upset that they were dragged into this war.

Hezbollah has put up a lot of resistance fighting on the ground. It’s not about the rockets. It’s the actual resistance on the ground. This is their terrain. These are their homes. They know these areas very intimately. So they have put up resistance, and we see it. And they’re doing this while much of the setup they had in place prior to 2024, a lot of the military infrastructure, was destroyed by the Lebanese Armed Forces. Much of this, south of the Litani, had been cleared out.

But in terms of disarming Hezbollah more now, you cannot disarm them in the middle of a war. There were more than a hundred strikes in the space of ten minutes on Wednesday. So it’s very difficult to say you are going to be disarming this group in the midst of a conflict. But what the government has done is declare Beirut a city free of arms. This effectively means going into areas, setting up checkpoints, and making sure that there are no armed non-state actors in administrative Beirut. I think it’s an important move in a very big way. We have to wait and see how they’re going to implement this because it may put the Army at odds with local populations. Tensions are already very high. People are very polarized, and the I.D.F. just issued a new evacuation order, and not only for the suburbs. They’ve really expanded the area to the Palestinian camps and elsewhere.

I don’t know where these people are going to go. We don’t have enough shelters. This is a country that has no air defenses, it has no sirens, and it has no bomb shelters.

But the Lebanese President reached out again and said they need to be negotiating directly with the Israelis. So Prime Minister Netanyahu announced that he’s authorized direct negotiations with Lebanon. Meanwhile, there’s no ceasefire. Frankly, I’m not holding my breath over these negotiations, but at least it opens a window, a diplomatic window to spare Lebanon more destruction.

Lebanon is a country that has had to deal with many refugees, including Palestinian refugees and Syrian refugees, at different times. You said that over a million people in the south had to leave their homes. Where are they going and what sort of strain might that put on the rest of Lebanon, in addition to the obvious horror for the people who have to leave?

The government has, I think, done a really good job in its very rapid response. This is the most responsive government we’ve seen to crises. They have established shelters in public schools and used the sports stadium in Beirut. Still, while some people displaced by the war are staying with their families, some are staying with friends, and some are renting places and staying there, it has created a lot of tension on the ground for a number of reasons. I think, as time passes and resources dwindle, it’s going to be a race to the bottom. Two, there is the sense that the targeting we saw by Israel has placed a bull’s-eye on the displaced. Nobody wants to have a displaced person in their vicinity because everyone’s worried that they might be targeted by Israel. And it’s created a lot of tensions on the ground, a lot of accusations. We’ve seen some neighborhoods that have absolutely refused to even open the public schools for refugees.

In addition to being concerned about targeting, is there a sense from other people in the country that some Shias had brought this on themselves by supporting Hezbollah, and that Hezbollah dragged this country into the war?

It is an issue, but it’s a minority issue. Like all countries, you have different perspectives and points of view. So it is an issue, but I really would say it’s a minority issue. People are trying to help in any way they can. Even those who don’t want to host are trying to help in other ways, but there’s also a lot of anger. There’s a lot of anger at Hezbollah for having dragged Lebanon into this, and an understanding that the displaced are the ones, frankly, who are paying the price for Hezbollah’s military adventurism. So, yes, there are people who think that way.

Israel is talking about creating what they call a buffer zone in southern Lebanon, which, according to them, would make it harder for Hezbollah to fire rockets at Israel. Do you have a sense of what a buffer zone would look like?

This is not a buffer zone. This is occupied Lebanese territory, period. In 2024, they dynamited around towns and villages near the border with Israel. Now they’re dynamiting additional villages, and making it impossible for people to go back home. They’ve also blown up all the bridges crossing the Litani River. It’s a river, so it varies with the geography, but it’s about thirty kilometres from the Israeli border. All the bridge crossings have been blown up. So that part of Lebanon is now completely isolated from the rest of Lebanon. Now, whether they decide to maintain a military presence in these areas, how extensive that military presence will be, I’m not sure. But what I would say is that so long as there is one Israeli soldier on Lebanese land, this is going to reinforce and give credence to Hezbollah’s narrative that only military resistance is viable. They will say it’s the only way to liberate land. This has been their narrative for a long time. This continues to be the narrative today, and the occupation of any part of Lebanon is going to reinforce that in a very big way. I’m already seeing the shift. Even among, I would say, members of the Shia community who have been increasingly critical of what Hezbollah has done, now everyone is closing ranks and not just within the community, but I would say even among many Lebanese.

So you’re saying, despite the anger at Hezbollah for dragging Lebanon into the war, that any medium- or long-term occupation of Lebanese territory may in fact have the reverse effect, politically, of making people think that at least Hezbollah is talking about reclaiming land, when nobody else is?

Yes, absolutely. There’s a lot of anger at what Israel is doing. What they are doing just does not make sense beyond absolutely terrorizing an already terrified population. The anger and the shock at what happened yesterday will turn the tide; it is already turning the tide. Anger was growing against Israeli actions in Lebanon. The feeling is that they’re not just going after Hezbollah; they’re going after Lebanon.

How has the government responded?

There’s sufficient evidence of war crimes being committed in Lebanon, and they can lodge complaints, make a case in international courts, despite the fact that we’re seeing the undermining of multilateral institutions, like the U.N., globally, but, still, I think we need to have an insistence on these. They’re beginning to do that. But, at the same time, yes, there is an offer to negotiate with Israel. These direct talks would be breaking a massive taboo for the country. It’s not something that was acceptable at all, even six months ago, let alone a year ago.

And if there’s a longer occupation, I assume it will get harder.

I think it'll become impossible to negotiate. Look, all conflicts, at the end of the day, have to end with a political settlement somewhere along the line. A military offensive is not going to resolve the issues between Lebanon and Israel. It certainly will not get rid of Hezbollah. This is an organization that was born out of the rubble of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, and which caused the deaths of twenty thousand people.

And these are Lebanese. This is not 1982, when Arafat was forced to leave Lebanon on a boat and went to Tunis. These are Lebanese. They’re not going to go anywhere. So we’re going to end up at the negotiating table sooner or later. And I think, if we don’t, we’re going to see many, many more Hezbollahs emerging. ♦