Katz warned Monday that the hundreds of thousands of people who have evacuated their homes south of the Litani River won’t be able to return until the “safety of residents” in northern Israel was “guaranteed.”

That raised fears about how long a wider ground offensive — or potential occupation of the area — might last.

“It will become bigger,” said Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies who previously served as the deputy director general and head of the Palestinian desk at the Israeli Strategic Affairs Ministry.

“Wider and bigger because we have to clear all the strip between the border and the Litani River,” said Michael, who is also a member of the Misgav Institute for National Security & Zionist Strategy.

Fears of a long-term occupation have grown amid outright calls from some for Israel to take permanent control of the area south of the Litani River, citing the security advantages it would offer Israel.

An editorial in the Jerusalem Post last week cited David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, identifying the river as a natural northern border for the Jewish state.

With Israeli troops moving village to village and a more extensive operation looming, many in Lebanon have expressed frustrations with Hezbollah.

The Lebanese government vowed in 2024 to disarm the militant group as part of a U.N.-brokered effort to bring the fighting with Israel to an end.

Since then there has been little progress in disarming the Iran-backed group, though Lebanon’s government moved earlier this month to ban its military activity as it sought to show it had no desire for further conflict.

In a joint statement on Monday, leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom called for “meaningful engagement” between Israel and Lebanon to work toward a political solution as they expressed grave concerns over the escalating violence.

Bilal Y. Saab, the senior managing director of Washington-based advisory group TRENDS US, who worked as a senior adviser at the Pentagon under the first Trump administration, said he believed Israel was “trying to apply as much pressure as possible on the Lebanese government and of course, Hezbollah, to negotiate [and] disarm” the Iran proxy.

“If that doesn’t work, then they will consider mounting a large scale ground invasion,” said Saab, also an associate fellow with with Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa Programme.

Already, though, the country has been swept by scenes of desperation and displacement that have been overshadowed by events in Iran and the Gulf.

Cyril Bassil, the communications coordinator in Lebanon for the humanitarian agency CARE, said pregnant women were sleeping on the sidewalk and others on the beach or in parking lots.

Al Omar said she was determined to return to her home in Dahieh, or at least to what’s left of it.

“Our houses have been destroyed,” she said.

But “the south is our south,” she added.

“Whatever happens, it’s our home.”

Raf Sanchez and Mo Abbas reported from Beirut, and Chantal Da Silva from London.