Israeli military urges mass evacuation in Lebanon

Jerusalem, Oct 19 (IANS/WISHAVWARTA) The Israeli military continued its push into Lebanon on Friday, calling up another brigade for combat and urging residents of 23 listed villages and towns to flee northward.

“For your own safety, you must evacuate your homes immediately and move to the north of the Awali River,” Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Spokesperson Avichay Adraee wrote on social media platform X. The Awali River, which flows near the southern Lebanese city of Sidon, is located dozens of kilometres north of most of the villages and towns on the evacuation list.

“Anyone who is near Hezbollah elements, facilities, or weapons is putting his or her life in danger,” Adraee warned, adding that any civilian moving south could be at risk of being killed by Israeli forces.

Later on Friday, the IDF announced in a statement that it was calling up an additional reserve brigade following a “situational assessment”, Xinhua news agency reported.

The troops will be assigned to “operational missions in the northern arena” to “enable the continuation of combat efforts against Hezbollah,” the IDF said.

Meanwhile, Israeli troops continued their offensive in southern Lebanon on Friday. According to the IDF, four militants were killed in a combined airstrike and a ground attack aimed at destroying a “central underground command center” belonging to Hezbollah.

During the operation, “dozens of weapons depots, several tunnel shafts, and other infrastructures” were destroyed, it said.

Hezbollah has yet to comment on the attack.

Since September 23, the Israeli army has been conducting intensive airstrikes and what it said was a “limited” ground operation in Lebanon amid an escalation with Hezbollah.

The confrontation between the Israeli army and Hezbollah, since its start on October 8, 2023, has killed more than 2,300 people, injured over 11,000 others, and displaced about 1.2 million residents in Lebanon, according to Lebanese authorities.