High on a rocky spur above the Litani River—southern Lebanon rolling away on one side, the Galilee Panhandle spread out on the other—sits Beaufort Castle.
The ancient Crusader fortress was once the linchpin of Israel’s security zone in southern Lebanon: taken in a bloody and heroic assault in the opening hours of the 1982 war, then ringed for the rest of the occupation by IEDs and Hezbollah guerrillas until the outpost earned its nickname—the Monster on the Mountain.
Forty-four years later, there is a new monster, and it dwells beneath the crumbling ruins.
Israel did not come back for the view. Since early March, the Beaufort and Wadi Saluki sector has served as one of Hezbollah’s principal firing platforms—more than 400 rockets launched toward northern Israel, most of them at the northern town of Metula, alongside drones and anti-tank fire at troops operating across southern Lebanon, with the ridge functioning as the command node directing the fighting.