Israeli military issues warning to residents of 27 villages in southern Lebanon

The Israeli military on Tuesday (1) asked residents of more than two dozen villages in southern Lebanon to leave their homes approximately 30 miles from the border with Israel.

“You must immediately move north of the Al-Awali River. Save your lives and leave your homes immediately,” Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Arab spokesman Avichay Adraee said on X.

The warnings come as Israel launches what it says will be “a limited ground operation” and “localized strikes” in southern Lebanon targeting Hezbollah. Israeli forces have not yet launched a full-scale invasion of southern Lebanon, three sources told CNN previously.

“Anyone close to Hezbollah members, their facilities, or their combat equipment is putting their life at risk. Any house used by Hezbollah for military purposes should be targeted,” Adraee said.

In an earlier post, the Israeli military spokesman urged residents not to travel “using vehicles” north of the Litani River towards southern Lebanon.

Israeli officials have characterized the incursion into southern Lebanon as limited in scope, saying there will be no “long-term occupation.”

Even sources in Lebanon said Israel has not yet launched a full-scale invasion, with another source in the UN Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) saying the military has carried out some “sporadic attacks” across the border.

But Israeli officials declined to say how deep troops would venture into the country or how long the operation was expected to last.

Previous military operations initially declared by Israel to be limited in their objectives have proven to be anything but. Examples include Israel’s years-long occupation of southern Lebanon that began in 1982 with the stated aim of a brief, limited mission to destroy the Palestine Liberation Organization.

More recently, the Israeli army declared a “limited” operation in Rafah, southern Gaza, which left the city in ruins.

Why is Israel attacking Lebanon?

Israel has intensified attacks on several targets in Lebanon since Thursday (19) in a series of strikes that have left hundreds of civilians dead and injured, and displaced at least 1 million people across the country.

Israel’s stated war aim is “to ensure the safe return of Israel’s northern communities to their homes,” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Thursday, and its army also said it is attacking Hezbollah targets. , particularly in southern Lebanon and Beirut.

Lebanon attacks injure two in central Israel

Two people suffered moderate to minor injuries when their vehicles were struck on Highway 6 north of Kfar Qassim in central Israel following strikes launched from Lebanon, the Israeli military said.

A 54-year-old bus driver suffered moderate head and back injuries from shrapnel when his bus carrying 10 passengers was hit. And a 31-year-old man is being treated for minor injuries after the car he was in was hit in the attack.

An Israeli security official told reporters that sirens were activated in central Israel.

“Several projectiles, these are from Lebanon, were fired towards Israel, sending millions of people to bomb shelters just a few minutes ago. I can say that several rockets towards the center of Israel, several locations,” he added.

Israeli police issued a warning for drivers to avoid Highway 6, which was closed “due to damage caused by the attacks.”

Police and bomb disposal units “are now working to isolate crash scenes in the station sectors and are searching for human remains and other items to remove another risk to the public,” according to Israel’s first response service.

Understand the conflict

The Israel Defense Forces’ ground incursion into Lebanon is just the latest episode in a war that, in its final stage, reaches a year next week.

Tensions began to rise after the attack by Hamas based in the Gaza Strip, south of Israel, which left 1,200 people dead and took more than two hundred hostages — some of which are still in the Palestinian enclave.

The following day, Hezbollah militants from Lebanon began firing rockets at the other end of Israel, to the north, declaring “solidarity” with the Palestinian cause.

Israel responded to the shooting on its northern border with limited strikes. Even so, the context of constant violence forced the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people on both sides of the border, both in southern Lebanon and in northern Israel.

While in Gaza the Israel Defense Forces carried out a ground operation that left more than 40,000 dead, on the northern border the conflict remained on the back burner until September.

Until then, the main episode on this front had been the death of a Hezbollah commander in an attack in the suburbs of Beirut in July.

In September, however, Israel managed to explode thousands of Hezbollah’s communications equipment, causing the death of dozens of the group’s members and injuring thousands, including civilians.

The Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service, was responsible for the operation, according to the investigation. CNN .

From then on, the country began a series of attacks that led to the death of practically the entire Hezbollah chain of command, the Israel Defense Forces say.

The main target died on Friday (27). Hassan Nasrallah was hit in an Israeli bombing of Hezbollah headquarters in Beirut. The secretary general had been in charge of the group for around 30 years.

Despite calls from its main allies to avoid a widespread regional war, Benjamin Netanyahu’s government decided to double down and, last weekend, carried out a series of attacks in Lebanon, shifting the center of gravity of the conflict from the Gaza Strip. to the northern border of Israel.

The escalation reached its peak on Monday (30), when the Israeli military decided to carry out a ground operation in southern Lebanon, invading the Arab country for the fourth time in just over forty years.

This content was originally published in Israeli military issues warning to residents of 27 villages in southern Lebanon on the CNN Brasil website.

Source: CNN Brasil