Israel’s attacks and pressure sowing seeds for division in tense Lebanon

Israel’s attacks on Lebanon and pressure on the Lebanese government to disarm the pro-Iran Shia movement Hezbollah by force are stoking internal tensions, analysts have told Al Jazeera.

Israel is leaning on this division as a strategy to try to pit communities against one another, they say. The strategy is working, they add, pointing to a recent series of sectarian and political provocations.
“It’s not a byproduct [of the war]. They know very well what they’re doing,” Michael Young, a Lebanon expert at the Carnegie Middle East Center, told Al Jazeera. “When they were emptying the southern suburbs, they knew very well that most of these people would head into inner Beirut and into areas which are not areas of Shia majority. And certainly, I think this was their effort to create sectarian tensions and, in a way, put more pressure on the Lebanese state.”
“It’s not a byproduct [of the war]. They know very well what they’re doing,” Michael Young, a Lebanon expert at the Carnegie Middle East Center, told Al Jazeera. “When they were emptying the southern suburbs, they knew very well that most of these people would head into inner Beirut and into areas which are not areas of Shia majority. And certainly, I think this was their effort to create sectarian tensions and, in a way, put more pressure on the Lebanese state.”
Destroying villages to pressure Lebanon
On March 2, Israel intensified its war on Lebanon. It was the second intensification in the last two years and came after a November 2024 ceasefire agreement that Israel violated more than 10,000 times, according to United Nations peacekeepers.

While Israel had repeatedly bombed southern Lebanon during that supposed ceasefire, it expanded its attacks to Beirut and other areas after Hezbollah responded to the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, on February 28.

Israel has killed more than 5,000 people in Lebanon since October 2023. In March, Israeli forces invaded Lebanon for the second time since 2024, where they are now systematically destroying southern towns and villages. Israel has forcibly displaced 1.2 million people, ordering people from their homes in southern Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs.