Inside the villages behind Netanyahu's annexation claim

The recording displayed across the phone is silent for four seconds. Then a low, male voice begins to speak:

“To the municipalities of Ebel el-Saqi, Marjayoun, Qlayaa, Borj el-Mlouk, and Deir Mimas,” he says.

“For some time, we have been sending warnings regarding the return of outsiders and people who are not residents of your municipalities. Despite this, over the past two Fridays, many have been arriving, including Hezbollah members. The State of Israel and the Israel Defense Forces are doing everything to protect you and to protect the Christians in your municipalities. We do not want to harm you, neither your property nor your lives.”

The recording, delivered in Arabic, proceeds to warn municipal officials that they bear responsibility for preventing what it describes as Hezbollah's return, urging them to cooperate for the sake of their security and the security of their residents.

“This is an official message from the Israel Defense Forces,” it ends.

In total, the message lasts one minute and 18 seconds. Short, yet direct.

Elsewhere in the world, a foreign military broadcasting recorded instructions directly to Lebanese municipal leaders might seem extraordinary. But four and a half months after renewed hostilities broke out between Israel and Hezbollah, this contact has become fairly routine. Municipal leaders in several border villages have spent months receiving phone calls and recorded warnings from Israeli forces.

The recordings took on renewed significance on July 5, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed during an appearance on Fox News' The Sunday Briefing that Christian villages in southern Lebanon had asked to be annexed by Israel because it protected them from Hezbollah.

The comments prompted a swift response. Fifteen Christian-majority and mixed border municipalities issued a joint communiqué rejecting the claim, reaffirming their commitment to the Lebanese state and accusing Israel of attempting to exploit their suffering to sow division. The statement called for the restoration of state authority and an end to the violence.

The controversy, however, reaches beyond a dispute over whether such requests were ever made. Annexation for these villages is not abstract. It is part of living memory.

Earlier this week, a daylong visit organized by the Lebanese nonprofit Nawraj during a trip to Lebanon by former French Prime Minister François Fillon passed through Deir Mimas, Bourj al-Mlouk, Qlayaa, Marjayoun, Rachaya al-Foukhar and Kawkaba, villages stretching across the Marjayoun and Hasbaya districts, several lying only a few kilometers from the Israeli border.

The landscape does not fit neatly into the narrative suggested by Netanyahu's comments. While several of the municipalities mentioned in his remarks have Christian majorities, the wider Marjayoun and Hasbaya districts include Christian, Shi’a, Sunni and Druze communities whose histories have long been intertwined.

The warnings about preventing Hezbollah's return have also altered the rules of everyday movement. Displaced Shi'a are forbidden from entering several villages in the Marjayoun district. The surveillance is near total. Israel knows precisely who is coming in and out. If too many unfamiliar people are seen within a village, the IDF "gives the mayors a call," one local school principal joked.

As the convoy wound through the hills and entered the village of Kawkaba, the unmistakable buzz of a drone filled the air. It had been sent to monitor the activities of the group.

The occupation officially ended in 2000. Israel's presence never entirely did.

The memory of occupation

Netanyahu's remarks touched one of the most sensitive chapters in the country's modern history.

From 1982 until Israel's withdrawal in May 2000, much of southern Lebanon formed part of an Israeli-controlled security zone stretching roughly 850 square kilometers and extending between 10 and 20 kilometers north of the international border. The zone encompassed many of the villages Netanyahu referenced, including Marjayoun, Qlayaa, Bourj al-Mlouk and Deir Mimas. Administered alongside the Israeli-backed South Lebanon Army, it remained in place for nearly 18 years.

Amal and Doha, both in their 60s and from Bourj al-Mlouk, remember those years well.

Both women describe the period as one of relative stability. Many residents crossed into Israel for work. Freedom of movement, for the most part, was permitted, they said. Large-scale hostilities were also largely absent.

“We did not feel at that time as if they were enemies,” Doha said.

Twenty-six years after Israel's withdrawal, however, they say Israel's conduct bears little resemblance to the occupation they remember. Months of airstrikes, systematic demolitions and ground operations have flattened large sections of border villages, destroying roads, schools, and other civilian infrastructure. The conflict has also killed 4,324 people since renewed hostilities began in March, according to the latest government figures.

The scale of the destruction, they said, has fundamentally changed how they view their southern neighbour.

“Now it is so much worse,” Doha said.

Something has changed. Why are they destroying our villages? The relationship with Israel is very different.

"We don't want Israel. We want to live in peace," Amal added, dismissing Netanyahu's remarks as "propaganda."

13- and 16-year-old Suzane and Melissa, by contrast, have no memory of Israeli occupation against which to measure the present. Life on Lebanese land is all they have ever known.

Melissa said she was confused by Netanyahu’s comments and could not understand his motivations.

"Why would anyone want to take our land?" Suzane echoed.

We love our region as it is. We have our friends, our family and our way of life.

For many of the children growing up in these villages, a return to classrooms has become a more immediate concern than politics. After finishing the school year online, they said they hoped to be back at their desks when the new academic year begins in September. The future they imagined was in Lebanon, not as part of Israel.

Later that day, a similar conviction was voiced before a wider audience. Addressing members of the visiting delegation and local residents gathered in the Rachaya el-Fekhar church hall, Father Fakhry, a Greek Orthodox priest, described Lebanese identity as a constant through decades of conflict.

"We present to you a people who have never compromised their homeland,"  he said.

Our people remain steadfast in their belief in their Lebanese identity.

The traces of war

The debate over annexation has centered on sovereignty. Residents speak just as often about what it takes to stay.

The fighting itself has eased considerably since a U.S.-brokered framework in June sharply reduced the pace of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah. A sixth round of negotiations in Rome this week focused on implementing the deal through pilot security zones in southern Lebanon. Residents of the border villages say conditions have improved, but few describe life as having returned to normal.

The prospect of renewed fighting has not disappeared. Neither have the traces of Israel's military presence.

An Israeli soldier's cap lies on the side of the road heading up from Deir Mimas toward Bourj al-Mlouk. It’s small–small enough that a passing driver could easily miss it if their eyes stayed on the road. But once seen, its colour and shape make it unmistakable.

Several hundred meters before the fallen cap, tank tracks cut across the asphalt. Deep and sharply defined, typical cars do not leave such markings. Neither do the Lebanese Armed Forces’ trucks that regularly patrol the area.

Beyond the visible signs of previous military activity, driving through the Marjayoun district has become an exercise in detours. Many roads that once connected neighboring villages are now impassable. Coming from Dibbine, the road to Khiam is blocked. Two LAF soldiers stand guard in front of a concrete barrier.

The road closures and damaged infrastructure have created a sense of isolation and confinement that makes the rest of the country feel much farther away than it is. It can take four hours to reach Beirut. Such a drive typically can be completed in a little under two hours.

Dr. Fouad Abou Nader, founder of Nawraj, said the restrictions continue to define daily life despite the reduction in fighting.

"I don't consider the situation to have changed at all," he said.

They can't drive from A to B without worrying that they will be bombed. The major need they want is to have a safe passage and a safe road.

Amal recently suffered a concussion. After completing an online consultation, she was informed she might have to seek further treatment at a hospital in Beirut, as opposed to the local hospital in Marjayoun. The prospect of making such a trek is daunting.

“I do not want to make that journey,” she said. 

The restrictions affect more than access to medical care. They also determine where people can live.

Melissa now lives in Qlayaa instead of her native Deir Mimas because her family cannot access their house. When Israeli troops first entered the Marjayoun district in March, they closed the road leading to their home. While the road has since reopened, Melissa's family is afraid to return.

Her mother checks on the house every day at 11 a.m., while it is still light outside. Melissa is unsure whether her family will ever move back. If they do, she hopes they will still be returning to Lebanon.