Fresh Israeli strikes hit southern Lebanon soon after the Israeli military warned residents across 20 locations, including the city of Nabatieh, to leave ahead of planned raids, thrusting another stretch of the border region deeper into the conflict.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) said the bombardment struck several of the areas named in the warning, among them the villages of Rihan and Sujud, both situated not far from Nabatieh.
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In its warning, the Israeli army told residents to “evacuate your homes immediately and move to the north of the Zahrani River”, roughly 45km from the southern border with Israel.
Last month, the Israeli military designated all territory south of the river as “combat zones”, and it has continued to carry out strikes there since then.
Hezbollah, which has continued attacking Israeli troops involved in the invasion of south Lebanon, said its fighters had clashed with advancing Israeli forces near the town of Majdal Zoun yesterday.
Israel and Hezbollah have been at war since early March, when the Iran-backed group pulled Lebanon into the broader Middle East conflict by firing rockets at Israel in retaliation for the killing of Iran’s supreme leader in US-Israeli strikes.
Israel responded with a sweeping air campaign and a ground invasion that, according to authorities, has killed more than 3,700 people in Lebanon.
An April ceasefire has gone unheeded by both Israel and Hezbollah, and a conditional truce announced this month after a fourth round of direct Lebanese-Israeli negotiations in Washington has likewise failed to stop the fighting.
Hezbollah has dismissed both the direct talks and the conditional arrangement, saying the deal obliges it to halt attacks while making no reference to Israel ending its own strikes or pulling its troops out of Lebanon.
Iran has maintained that Lebanon must be included in any agreement aimed at ending the wider Middle East war, and a senior US official said Friday that a peace deal with Iran “includes Lebanon”.
Lebanon’s leaders, however, have accused Tehran of using the country as a “bargaining chip”.
Hezbollah MP Ali Fayyad said Lebanon should seize any opportunity presented by a deal to end the Iran war if the country is part of it.
“We want the Lebanese state to negotiate for itself, and nobody is suggesting forfeiting this role,” Mr Fayyad said, “however, the state must abandon the policy of being crushed in the face of the Israelis and submission to the Americans.”
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun wrote in a statement on X that the country is confronting “a fateful test”.
“Either its people unite around a sovereign state that monopolises weapons, upholds the law and protects citizens irrespective of their affiliation or position, or it remains hostage to the logic of militias,” the statement said.
