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BEIRUT: Israel says it has established a “Yellow Line” in south Lebanon near the border, where its forces are operating despite a 10-day ceasefire with Iran-backed Hezbollah group.

What is the so-called “Yellow Line”, how does it resemble an Israeli military demarcation in the Gaza Strip and where does it leave Lebanon?

What has Israel announced? Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel agreed to the truce, which took effect on Friday, but would maintain a 10-kilometre (six-mile) deep “security zone” along the border in southern Lebanon.

On Saturday, Israel’s military announced a “Yellow Line” in the country’s south.

Hezbollah vows to bring down ‘arbitrary boundary’ through its resistance

The following day, it published a map identifying a “forward defence line”, stretching from the Mediterranean in the west up to Lebanon’s border with Syria in the east.

It said “five divisions, alongside Israeli navy forces” were operating in the area to dismantle Hezbollah infrastructure and “prevent direct threats to communities in northern Israel”.

The area includes frontier villages that were destroyed or heavily damaged after a previous round of hostilities erupted between Israel and Hezbollah in 2023.

Most locals have fled the area, though residents of some Christian villages have been defying Israeli army evacuation orders.

Similar to Gaza?

In Gaza, the “Yellow Line” refers to an Israeli military demarcation established during an October 2025 ceasefire with Palestinian militant group Hamas, creating a de facto boundary inside the Palestinian territory.

It effectively splits Gaza between an area under direct Israeli military control where Palestinians are not permitted, and a Hamas-governed area where residents remain vulnerable to Israeli strikes.

The line has reshaped daily life for Gazans and prevented tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians from returning home.

Israel’s military regularly says it has targeted individuals it describes as militants approaching the line in Gaza, and has begun doing the same in Lebanon.

Lebanese military expert Hassan Jouni said that “the Yellow Line in Lebanon is a copy of the idea and philosophy of the Yellow Line in Gaza”, even bearing the same name.

In Gaza, however, the line was “the result of an agreement with Hamas. In Lebanon, there is no agreement… it was decided unilaterally” by Israel, he said, calling it “an aggressive decision”.

What options does Lebanon have?

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said on Monday that planned direct talks with Israel aimed to end hostilities and Israel’s occupation in the south.

Under the truce terms, which do not mention an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, Israel reserves the right to continue targeting Hezbollah to prevent “planned, imminent or ongoing attacks”.

Israeli forces never fully withdrew after the last war, despite being required to under a November 2024 ceasefire.

Hezbollah strongly opposes the planned negotiations and has also called on Israeli troops to withdraw, decrying what it sees as Israeli expansionism. Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah said on Monday that “we will bring down this Yellow Line through the resistance (Hezbollah), with our insistence on our legitimate right to defend ourselves and our country”.

He vowed that Israel would be unable to set up any buffer zone in south Lebanon, and that Hezbollah would drive out Israeli troops if they stay “on any inch of our territory”.

Published in Dawn, April 21st, 2026

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Apple on Monday announced that Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Tim Cook will step down in September, handing the job to company veteran John Ternus.

The announcement answers long-simmering questions about who would succeed Cook, 65, and comes as Apple strives to show it is not being left behind in the age of artificial intelligence.

Ternus, who joined Apple in 2001, has recently overseen the company’s hardware engineering efforts and has played a key role in reigniting sales of products such as Apple’s Mac computers, which have gained market share in recent years.

Cook, who has led Apple since 2011, will become the company’s executive chairman, Apple said in a statement.

“It has been the greatest privilege of my life to be the CEO of Apple and to have been trusted to lead such an extraordinary company,” Cook said in a release.

In naming Ternus chief executive, Apple is shifting from Cook, a supply chain guru who helped turn Apple into a global brand that churns out hundreds of millions of units per year, to a leader who has long focused on design and products.

Ben Bajarin, CEO of technology consulting firm Creative Strategies, said Ternus is well-liked within Apple “and will bring fresh energy.”

Separately, Apple said that Johny Srouji, who has overseen Apple’s custom chip and sensor designs, has been named chief hardware officer.

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BANNU: Two personnel of the Federal Consta­bulary (FC) were martyred in a firing incident carried out by militants in Kuram Garhi on Sunday, in the jurisdiction of the Cantt police station.

According to police, the slain officials were shopping at a local market when the attackers, who arrived on a bike, targeted them and managed to flee the scene.

FC sources said the deceased were identified as Havaldar Rokhniyaz and sepoy Rehmanullah. Both were posted in the FC Daryoba MI platoon.

Soon after the incident, the security forces cordoned off the area and launched a search operation to trace the attackers. Additional police personnel were also deployed for the task. Security officials stated all available resources were being utilised to apprehend the suspects at the earliest.

Meanwhile, the Sham­uzai police post in the remit of the Township police station was dest­royed by the militants on Saturday night after they rigged it with explosives. Sources said the intense explosion destroyed the building, which had been lying vacant since 2022.

After the blast, the pol­ice and other law enforcement agencies reached the scene, cordoned off the area, and began collecting evidence to hunt the suspects. Police confirmed that no casualties occu­rred in the incident. Sep­arately, a ‘Qau­mi Jirga’ announced a shutter-down and wheel-jam str­ike on April 20.

Published in Dawn, April 20th, 2026

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The Israeli military published for the first time a map of its new deployment line inside Lebanon on Sunday, bringing dozens of mostly abandoned Lebanese villages under its control, ​days after a ceasefire with Lebanon took effect.

There was no immediate comment from Lebanese officials or ‌from Hezbollah. Israel and Lebanon agreed on Thursday to a US-backed ceasefire in fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

The deal, which followed the first direct talks in decades between Israel and Lebanon on April 14, is meant to enable broader US-Iran negotiations, ​but with Israeli forces maintaining positions deep inside southern Lebanon.

Stretching east to west, the deployment line ​on the map runs 5-10 kilometres deep from the border into Lebanese territory, ⁠where Israel has said that it plans to create a so-called buffer zone.

Israeli forces have destroyed Lebanese ​villages in the area, claiming their aim is to protect northern Israeli towns from Hezbollah attacks. It has ​created buffer zones in Syria and in Gaza, where it controls more than half the enclave.

“Five divisions, alongside Israeli navy forces, are operating simultaneously south of the forward defence line in southern Lebanon in order to dismantle Hezbollah … infrastructure sites ​and to prevent direct threats to communities in northern Israel,” the military said in a statement accompanying ​the map.

Asked whether people who fled the Israeli strikes would be allowed to return to their homes, the Israeli military ‌declined ⁠to comment.

Lebanese civilians have been able to access some of the villages that fall on or beyond the Israeli-set line, but Israeli forces still prevent people from accessing most of those south of the line, a Lebanese security source said.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Sunday that homes on the border exploited ​by Hezbollah would be demolished ​and that “any structure threatening ⁠our soldiers and any road suspected of (being planted with) explosives must be immediately destroyed”.

Lebanon was dragged into the war on March 2, when Hezbollah opened fire ​in support of Tehran, prompting an Israeli offensive that has killed more than ​2,100 people, ⁠including 177 children, and forced more than 1.2 million to flee, Lebanese authorities say.

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Islamabad Deputy Commissioner Irfan Nawaz Memon on Sunday dismissed as fake on Sunday a notification announcing that all public and private offices in the federal capital and Rawalpindi would remain closed from April 20 until further notice.

In a social media post on X, Memon said, “Citizens are requested to refrain from sharing unverified or fake news. Please rely only on official handles of the district administration, Islamabad, for authentic updates.”

The statement comes as several other measures have been taken ahead of a possible second round of talks in Islamabad.

Islamabad’s Red Zone was closed for traffic as the capital braced to welcome foreign delegations, police said on Sunday, with alternate traffic plans issued to facilitate citizens.

Public and heavy transport are also suspended in Islamabad until further orders.

The Rawalpindi district administration also suspended all public and goods transport from Sunday noon till the next directives.

Advance teams have also started arriving in Islamabad, sources told Dawn.

More to follow

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• Hezbollah denies allegation, calls for ‘caution in making judgements’
• Macron urges Beirut to ‘guarantee security’ of UNIFIL peacekeepers

PARIS / BEIRUT: A French soldier was killed and three others wounded in an attack on Saturday on UN peacekeepers in Lebanon that appeared to have been carried out by Hezbollah, French President Emmanuel Macron said, an accusation the group has denied.

“Everything points to Hezbollah being responsible for this attack,” Macron said on X, urging Lebanese authorities to arrest the perpetrators.

Macron urged Lebanon’s leaders to “guarantee the security of UNIFIL soldiers” in calls with the country’s president and prime minister, the Elysee presidential palace in Paris said.

Israel and Lebanon agreed to a 10-day ceasefire on Thursday in order to negotiate an end to six weeks of war between Israel and the Iran-backed group Hezbollah.

The fighting in Lebanon, one of the fronts in the Middle East war, has seen the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) deployed there repeatedly targe-ted, by both Israeli and Hezbollah forces.

‘Caught in ambush’

The peacekeeper killed, identified as staff sergeant Florian Montorio, was caught in an “ambush” as his unit headed to a UNIFIL outpost and he died from a “direct gunshot”, France’s armed forces minister Catherine Vautrin said on X.

She said the outpost they had been heading to had been “cut off for several days by combat in the area”. The ambush was carried out “by an armed group at very close range”, she said.

Vautrin added that Montorio was “picked up by his comrades under fire” but they were unable to resuscitate him.

Hezbollah refutes claim

Hezbollah denied it was involved in the deadly attack on United Nations peacekeepers in southern Lebanon.

“Hezbollah denies any connection to the incident that occurred with UNIFIL forces in the Ghandouriyeh-Bint Jbeil area, and calls for caution in making judgements and assigning responsibilities regarding the incident pending the Lebanese army’s investigations to determine the full circumstances of the incident,” the group said in a statement.

Lebanon’s president, Joseph Aoun, condemned the attack and pledged to bring those responsible to justice.

Published in Dawn, April 19th, 2026

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Rawalpindi police on Saturday denied reports regarding the closure of markets across the city until further notice, terming them baseless.

A statement posted on the social media platform X quoted City Police Officer (CPO) Syed Khalid Mahmood Hamdani as saying that no directives had been issued by Rawalpindi police regarding the closure of markets.

He said that all markets and businesses were open as usual till 8pm as per the government’s policy.

He added that effective security arrangements were being ensured in view of the “movement of foreign delegations”. He said police teams were actively conducting search, sweep, and combing operations in different parts of the city to maintain law and order.

He said police were working day and night to ensure foolproof security at all times.

Separately, Rawalpindi Deputy Commissioner Hassan Waqar Cheema also shared visuals regarding reports of hotels and markets being closed until further notice.

“This news is fake and not issued by the district administration. The public is advised not to pay attention to fake news. The district administration Rawalpindi will provide timely and authentic updates,” he said.

The development comes as strict security arrangements are being made in Islamabad and Rawalpindi amid an expected second round of talks between the United States and Iran amid the war in the Middle East.

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