It is a highly symbolic escalation. As forty-four years ago, Israel raised its flag atop the Beaufort Fortress in Lebanon. Despite the ceasefire in force since April 17, the Hebrew State welcomed this Sunday, May 31, a war which marks a “decisive turning point”, according to Benjamin Netanyahu, in its offensive in southern Lebanon. The Israeli Prime Minister called for further “extending its hold on places that were under the control of Hezbollah” towards the north, even if it means crossing rivers.
“On this day of commemoration of the soldiers who fell during the First Lebanon War (1982)”, soldiers “returned to the summit of Beaufort and once again raised the flag of Israel”, launched the Israeli Minister of Defense, Israel Katz, on his Telegram channel. Reminiscences of a time when the Israeli army had moved further north, to the point of besieging Beirut, and which make the Lebanese fear a lasting occupation of their territory.
Because this new breakthrough by the Israeli army could allow it to progress towards the region of Nabatieh, north of the Litani River, supposed to mark the limit of the buffer zone imposed by the Jewish state. Already, during the two decades of occupation of southern Lebanon which ended in 2000, Beaufort had served as an outpost for Israeli forces. From this occupation was born Hezbollah, a pro-Iranian Shiite resistance movement which made southern Lebanon its stronghold.
Perched at an altitude of 710 m, the rocky spur located 29 km north of the Israeli border overlooks the Litani River and part of the north of the Jewish state. A strategic location which has made it the object of multiple conquests since its construction.
Strategic position
In Arabic, the citadel is named Qala’at ash-Shqif, which means “castle of the High Rock”. That of “Beau fort” was given to it by the crusaders, who occupied it during the 12th century. Difficult, however, to determine the date of construction or its sponsor. According to William of Tyre, the castle was built by the Crusaders, which some historians dispute. For the latter, the fortress would have been built under the Roman or Byzantine Empire before being enlarged and restored by the Arabs, then seized by the crusaders in 1138.
In 1139, the position was ceded to the Franks by the Emir of Damascus, then handed over by Foulques of Anjou, king of Jerusalem, to the lord of the Sidon region. The citadel passed from hand to hand throughout the 12th and 13th centuries, before being partly destroyed by the Ottomans in the 17th century.
A large part of the fortifications that were still standing fell in 1782, when the governor of Acre – today’s Israeli city, then under Ottoman domination – captured the fortress. In 1837, an earthquake caused what remained of it to collapse. The restoration did not begin until 1920, during the first French mandate in Lebanon, and continued after Lebanese independence in 1943.
From the end of the 1960s, as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict moved to southern Lebanon, the armed fighters of the Palestine Liberation Organization made the castle “the epicenter of their battles”, highlighted human geography researcher Zara Fournier in 2019. Until the capture of the citadel by the Israeli army in 1982. In 2024, knowing the Beaufort Fortress exposed to the repercussions of the war declared against Hezbollah by Israel, UNESCO granted it reinforced protection, as well as 33 other cultural sites in Lebanon.
