BEIRUT/JERUSALEM, March 4 (Reuters) – The Israeli military ordered the evacuation of a swathe of southern Lebanon on Wednesday, telling residents to move north of the Litani River on a third day of full-blown hostilities with Iran-backed Hezbollah.
While Israel has already warned residents to leave dozens of villages in southern Lebanon, Wednesday’s evacuation order was the broadest yet.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Tuesday he had authorised the military to advance and take control of additional positions in Lebanon, where Israeli troops have held several hilltops since a war with Hezbollah in 2024.
DOZENS KILLED SINCE MONDAY
Israeli strikes have killed dozens of people in Lebanon since Monday, according to the Lebanese health ministry. Many thousands of Lebanese have already fled their homes.
The war in the Middle East spread to Lebanon on Monday, when Hezbollah opened fire, saying it aimed to avenge the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran.
An Israeli airstrike hit a four-storey building in the eastern Lebanese city of Baalbeck on Wednesday, killing six people and wounding another 15, the Lebanese state National News Agency reported, adding that rescue workers were still searching for missing people.
Hezbollah announced several attacks on Wednesday, including one using what it described as a precision-guided missile that it said was fired at a military facility in northern Israel.
Israeli military spokesperson Effie Defrin said the Israeli military had attacked more than 250 Hezbollah targets throughout Lebanon over a 48-hour period.
(Reporting by Tala Ramadan, Jana Choukeir, Enas Alashray and Ahmed Tolba; Steven Scheer in Jerusalem; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Christian Schmollinger, Saad Sayeed and Alex Richardson)
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