The Israeli Army has issued new forced evacuation orders this Saturday directed at several towns in southern Lebanon located north of the Litani River. This area marked the main line of the Israeli invasion into Lebanese territory until Friday, before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the expansion of operations following several days of intensified attacks.
The Arabic-speaking spokesperson for the Israeli Armed Forces, Avichai Adraee, has urged the inhabitants of six villages to move "north of the Zahrani River," located about 15 kilometers above the Litani. Adraee has justified this new advance by holding Hezbollah militias responsible for "breaking the ceasefire."
The decision comes after a new wave of Israeli night bombings that has left at least three dead and around a dozen injured. Two of the victims, a father and his son, died from the impact of a drone in the Al Marj neighborhood, in Ansar; the attack also injured seven members of their family, according to the official Lebanese agency NNA.
On Saturday morning, another attack on a van on the Sharifa-Haboush-Nabatiye road killed one man and seriously injured another. Almost at the same time, a new bombing on the access road to Nabih Berri Governmental Hospital caused three more injuries, according to the same Lebanese source.
A shopping center in Ansar has been destroyed, and the towns of Zabdin and Haruf have also been hit by projectiles fired by Israel, increasing material damage in the region.
Hezbollah Resumes Attacks Against Israel
In parallel, Hezbollah militias have announced the resumption of their actions against Israel since last dawn. The Shiite group has reported an ambush against a contingent of Israeli soldiers who were trying to advance towards Ghandouriyeh, in the Nabatiye region.
The armed organization claims that in this operation, in which it used artillery fire and rockets, it managed to injure Israeli soldiers, who had to be evacuated under a dense smoke screen.
Hezbollah also communicated the launch of several rockets against northern Israel, specifically towards the city of Kiryat Shmona, the northernmost city in the country. Israeli media such as the newspaper Yedioth Aharonoth have reported on nighttime sirens and the activation of the missile defense system, which reportedly intercepted some projectiles, with no reports of casualties for now.
On Friday, eleven other people, including two minors, lost their lives in two Israeli attacks against southern Lebanon, despite the ceasefire agreed upon in April and after the Israeli prime minister reiterated on Tuesday that his forces were intensifying their operations in the neighboring country.
Netanyahu stated that day that the Israeli Army is "intensifying" its offensive in Lebanon, where more than 3,300 people have died since the beginning of March as a consequence of these attacks, in a context where negotiations with the Lebanese government are ongoing to try to reach a peace agreement.
The latest large-scale escalation began on March 2, when the Shiite party-militia Hezbollah launched a barrage of projectiles against Israel in retaliation for the assassination of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, during the offensive initiated on February 28 by Israel and the United States against the Asian country.
Both sides had agreed to a ceasefire in November 2024, after thirteen months of clashes linked to the October 7, 2023 attacks. However, since then, Israel has maintained frequent bombings on Lebanese territory and the presence of troops in various locations, alleging that its operations were directed against Hezbollah, while Beirut and the group itself denounced these actions.