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Few towns are as storied in Hezbollah's resistance folklore as south Lebanon's Khiam and Bint Jbeil, the sites of some of the most intense ground clashes between the Iran-backed group and invading Israeli forces, both today and long into the past.
A Hezbollah official described both towns as highly “symbolic” to the embattled organisation, and they form a vital part of the Israeli military strategy.
Focus may have briefly switched to a possible ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel, or to the reduction of air strikes in Beirut – but on the ground in south Lebanon, fighting is raging as intensely as usual.
Sometimes referred to as the 'Capital of the Resistance,' Israeli forces are massing on the town of Bint Jbeil and seeking to surround a hardcore band of Hezbollah fighters holed up in its centre.
The town, home to around 30,000 residents before the war, is being pummelled by Israeli warplanes, artillery shelling and the use of white phosphorus as well as drones. The infantry troops from the 98th Division, with its paratroopers and commando brigades, along with the Givati Infantry Brigade, are trying to enter the city and capture it.
Despite Israeli cries of victory being near, Hezbollah insists that the Bint Jbeil area and the surrounding villages are not completely isolated from the rest of the country. The Israelis appear to have captured – and obliterated in the process – the Bint Jbeil stadium, a famous landmark where in 2000 the former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah declared Israel “weaker than a spider's web” after its forces withdrew from south Lebanon.
“Bint Jbeil 2000: someone here spoke and boasted about webs and spiders,” Israeli media reported 98th Division commander Brig Gen Guy Levy as having told his troops this week from the stadium. Today, that man no longer exists, the stadium is gone, and his words are worth nothing.” Mr Nasrallah was assassinated in 2024.
“Bint Jbeil is one of the biggest symbols of resistance,” said a Hezbollah official, adding the battles that had been fought there through the years had been pivotal in the enduring conflict with Israel. In 2006, the Battle for Bint Jbeil was one of the bloodiest events of the 33-day war.
The Hezbollah official claimed Bint Jbeil was symbolic to the Israelis too, with the stadium a “lingering reminder for them that they withdrew” from this area under Hezbollah fire in previous wars.
The city appears to be largely destroyed according to limited satellite data published in Lebanese media, with Hezbollah saying the Israelis are besieging Bint Jbeil from four positions. The group said the main thrust was coming from the Debel-Ain Ebel area – two Christian villages to the south-west which do not have Hezbollah infrastructure and still have a handful of residents.
The Hezbollah official said the Israelis were able to advance particularly effectively on Bint Jbeil from the direction of Debel and Ain Ebel.
Christian towns of southern Lebanon have prevented Hezbollah from using their grounds to launch attacks, to avoid being attacked by Israel in return.
The Hezbollah official said that without the Israelis being able to capture Bint Jbeil, “it cannot connect its incursions” into Lebanon, “less than 10km away from one another”. They also cannot “connect them across the width of the front from Naqoura to the eastern sector. Therefore, it will be unable to put in place an occupation similar to the pre-2000 border strip.”
Khiam
Exactly what is happening in either town is hard to verify. The only information or footage available is from the warring parties.
But when fighting broke out again between Hezbollah and Israel last month, almost immediately Israeli ground troops sought to enter and bombard the outskirts of Khiam, which is only a few kilometres north of the border.
The Israelis were never able to fully capture the town in 2024 in what was the largest ground fight in that war, but are seeking to do so this time.
Fierce fighting continues to this day over a town that is strategically placed on top of a hill, as well as important militarily and sentimentally.
“The town of Khiam is not just an ordinary geographical location, it is a pivotal point in southern Lebanon and therefore holds significant importance in any confrontation between the Israeli army and Hezbollah,” said Brig Gen Mounir Shehadeh, a retired Lebanese military officer who formerly served as the Lebanese government's co-ordinator with Unifil peacekeepers in south Lebanon.
He said a number of factors give it this status, including its viewpoints of the nearby Marjeyoun Plain, the Israeli border, Lebanese roads linking south Lebanon to Hezbollah positions in the Bekaa Valley and its proximity to the contested Shebaa Farms.
The Israelis have also sought to cut south Lebanon's access to the Bekaa Valley – as well as to the rest of the country – because it remains an important supply route for basic supplies, along with potential weapons and reinforcements.
If they were able to control Khiam, the Israelis would have an ideal location to expand their buffer zone, and a site for reconnaissance units, surveillance systems and possibly defence missiles, said Brig Gen Shehadeh. As long as Khiam is not firmly in the hands of Israel, it prevents the army from establishing the idea of an occupied border strip, the Hezbollah official said.
“Every day, every night, every morning we hear a 'party' of bombs. Bomb, bomb, bomb. We don't sleep,” said Daniel Nicolas of Qlayaa, which is next to and overlooks Khiam, and is one of only a handful of villages in southern Lebanon that are still populated. He spoke in person to The National in Qlayaa, with intense Israeli bombardment audible nearby.
From neighbouring Maryejoun, smoke can be seen billowing above Khiam due to the clashes. Khiam is unreachable, as Israel has also obliterated the roads connecting it with the rest of Lebanon. Yet the Hezbollah official insisted that the Israelis had not yet captured the north of Khiam and were so far unable to bypass the town.
Recently, Hezbollah has carried out more attacks on Israeli military positions inside Lebanon than in Israel, highlighting that the focus of ground fighting is in towns in south Lebanon.
Brig Gen Shehadeh said Khiam retains important symbolic importance too. It used to be the site of a notorious detention site operated by a pro-Israeli south Lebanese militia that emerged during the 1975-1990 Lebanese civil war.
When Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000, prisoners were famously filmed being freed from the detention centre after years of abuse. He said the “prison witnessed the defeat of the Israeli army when it withdrew, leaving the prisoners behind. Locals then broke down the doors and freed them in a scene etched in memory to this day”.
When The National visited the centre of Khiam in January before the war erupted, large areas of the town were already in ruins, and Israeli forces had set up an illegal occupation post nearby. The town was littered with posters of dead Hezbollah fighters, but the Israelis were never fully able to capture Khiam in 2024.
“Everyone thinks the war in Lebanon is over,” Ali Khreiss, a resident of Khiam and father of a dead Hezbollah fighter, said in January. “But it's not over," he added ominously. "We're still at the beginning of the war, at least for the Israelis."
