Israel's military told residents of more than 20 towns in south Lebanon to evacuate their homes immediately on Thursday as it pressed on with cross-border incursions and struck Hezbollah targets in a suburb of Beirut.
The latest warnings took the number of southern towns subject to evacuation calls to 70 and included the provincial capital Nabatieh, suggesting another Israeli military operation was imminent against the Iran-backed armed group.
Hezbollah also carried out new strikes, targeting what it called Israel's “Sakhnin base” for military industries in Haifa Bay on the Mediterranean coast of northern Israel with a salvo of rockets.
Israel, which has been fighting Hamas in the Palestinian territory of Gaza for almost a year, sent troops into southern Lebanon on Tuesday after two weeks of intense airstrikes in a worsening conflict that has drawn in Iran and risks drawing in the US Israel says the aim of its operations in Lebanon is to allow tens of thousands of its citizens displaced from northern Israel by Hezbollah bombardments during the Gaza war to return home safely.
More than 1.2 million Lebanese have been displaced by Israeli attacks, and nearly 2 000 people have been killed since the start of the Israeli attacks on Lebanon over the last year, most of them in the past two weeks, Lebanese authorities said.
There are also growing concerns about getting medical supplies for the wounded, and the World Health Organization said 28 healthcare workers had been killed in Lebanon in the previous 24 hours.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said flight restrictions meant the agency would not be able to deliver a large planned shipment of trauma and medical supplies to Lebanon on Friday.
The Lebanese army said two soldiers were killed by Israeli strikes in separate incidents in south Lebanon on Thursday, one in an attack on a military post and another in a strike on a rescue mission with the Lebanese Red Cross.
The army said that it returned fire when the military post was struck, a rare development for a force that has historically stayed on the sidelines of major conflict with Israel.
In Beirut's southern suburb known as Dahiye, a dense neighbourhood where Hezbollah holds sway, several explosions were heard on Thursday and several large plumes of smoke were rising after heavy Israeli strikes. Hezbollah said it detonated a bomb against Israeli forces infiltrating a southern Lebanese village and attacked Israeli forces near the border. Overnight, Israel bombed central Beirut in an attack the Lebanese health ministry said killed nine people.
Reuters journalists reported hearing a heavy blast after a building in the district of Bachoura was targeted a few hundred metres from parliament, the closest an Israeli strike has come to the central downtown district.
A Hezbollah-linked civil defence group said seven of its staff, including two medics, were killed in the Beirut attack.
Israel also said it struck a municipality building in the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil, killing 15 Hezbollah members and destroying many weapons.
Eight Israeli soldiers were killed in ground combat on Wednesday in south Lebanon as its forces thrust into its northern neighbour.
Cape Times