The Litani is not a considerable body of water. It was dammed at Qaraaoun to provide irrigation and electricity for the Bekaa Valley.
The river's significance has been largely political and military since the late 1970s. Israel dubbed its 1978 invasion of Lebanon "Operation Litani," as the river demarcated the extent of the Israeli military's thrust into Lebanon. The region south of the Litani until then, and again between 1978 and 1982, was used by Palestinian militants as a base of operations against Israel. After the PLO was cleared from Lebanon in 1982, the region again gained significance as the base of operation for Hezbollah, the Shiite militant group that dominates South Lebanon.
Israel has also referred to the Litani River as the "Red Line" beyond which it did not accept the presence of Syrian military forces, which occupied Lebanon between 1976 and 2005. Israel, chronically parched for water, controlled most of the Litani River watershed until it withdrew from Lebanon in 2000.
