"At the end of the operation, the IDF will establish itself in a security zone inside Lebanon, on a defensive line against anti-tank missiles, and will maintain security control over the entire area up to the Litani," Katz said in a video statement published by his ministry, referring to a river around 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the border.

He said the return of more than 600,000 displaced Lebanese residents would be "completely prevented" until north Israel's security was ensured.

Katz added that "all the houses in the villages adjacent to the border in Lebanon will be demolished in accordance with the Rafah and Beit Hanoun model in Gaza, in order to remove once and for all the border-adjacent threats from the residents of the north".

Israeli forces devastated Rafah and Beit Hanoun during their two-year war against Hamas in Gaza, triggered by the Palestinian Islamist movement's attack against southern Israel in October 2023.

Lebanon was pulled into the current Middle East war when the Tehran-backed Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel on March 2 to avenge the killing of Iran's supreme leader in the opening salvo of the US-Israeli war against the Islamic republic.

Israel has responded with broad strikes across Lebanon and a ground offensive in the south.

Lebanese authorities say more than 1,200 people have been killed since the hostilities began, with more than one million others displaced.

On Sunday, Human Rights Watch said it had written to Katz to express its "grave concerns about recent statements made by Israeli officials that undermine respect for international humanitarian law and a willingness to abide by them".

"These concerns arise in the context of a broader pattern of laws-of-war violations by Israeli forces," says the letter, a copy of which was published by HRW.

The organisation cited comments made by Katz on March 16 in which he threatened to prevent the return of people who had fled the region south of the Litani.

"Using the denial of civilian return as a bargaining tool constitutes forced displacement, which is prohibited under the laws of war and a possible war crime," HRW said.

Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani told journalists on Tuesday that since the start of the war, Hezbollah had fired "somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 rockets, UAVs and missiles, and mortars... towards Israel, some towards our troops, some towards civilian communities".