The IDF announced Sunday that Israeli forces captured the Beaufort ridge in southern Lebanon, returning to the strategic high ground for the first time since Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000.

The ridge overlooks Metula, the Galilee Panhandle and key northern communities. For the IDF, the operation is meant to deny Hezbollah the terrain it used to observe Israeli towns, direct anti-tank fire and operate rocket and drone infrastructure.

Israel first captured Beaufort during the First Lebanon War in 1982. The site later became one of the symbols of Israel’s 18-year security zone in southern Lebanon. In May 2000, the IDF demolished its Beaufort outpost and withdrew to the international border, while UN Resolution 1701 was later meant to keep Hezbollah away from the area south of the Litani.

Now, 26 years later, Israel says those arrangements failed to remove the threat. The current operation, led by Division 36, included Golani, Givati, the 7th Armored Brigade, the Fire Brigade and the Multidimensional Unit. Engineering forces built crossings over the Litani to move major forces north of the river.

Defense Minister Israel Katz said the move carried both military and symbolic weight. “Twenty-six years after the withdrawal from the security zone in Lebanon, the Israeli flag is once again flying over the peaks overlooking the communities of the Galilee,” Katz said. He added that Israeli forces “will remain there as part of the security zone in Lebanon.”

Brig. Gen. Yiftach Norkin, commander of Division 36, said the operation was meant to destroy Hezbollah’s positions on the ridge “so that direct fire cannot be carried out toward the northern communities and the Galilee Panhandle.” The capture of Beaufort signals that Israel is no longer relying solely on border defenses and diplomatic arrangements to contain Hezbollah. Instead, it is moving to seize and hold the terrain from which the group threatens northern Israel.