admin The Israeli military said on Thursday it had begun new strikes on Hizbollah infrastructure around the southern Lebanese city of Tyre after issuing an evacuation warning to its residents.
Israel the previous day had declared all areas south of Lebanon’s Zahrani River – an area roughly 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the border and including Tyre – as “combat zones” and told residents to evacuate ahead of attacks against Iran-backed Hizbollah.
The sweeping warning — the first of its kind since an April 17 ceasefire — came as many Lebanese tried to celebrate the Muslim holiday of Eid Al Adha.
In a fresh evacuation order to residents of parts of Tyre early on Thursday, the Israeli military said it was “compelled to take forceful action” against Hizbollah and announced in a later statement on Telegram that it had begun strikes it said targeted the group’s infrastructure.
A municipal worker uses a bulldozer to clear debris from a street at the site of an Israeli strike in Tyre, southern Lebanon, on Thursday. AFP
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported two sets of Israeli strikes had taken place on the city and an area to its east on Thursday morning, hitting a building and sparking a fire in Tyre.
Israel this week vowed to ramp up operations in Lebanon and said it was expanding ground operations there, while Hizbollah said its fighters had clashed with Israel’s forces beyond an Israeli-declared “yellow line” in the south.
Talks are expected on Friday between Lebanese and Israeli military delegations at the Pentagon, with a new round of direct negotiations aimed at ending the hostilities set for next week.
Residents search the rubble of their destroyed home following a dawn Israeli air raid on the southern Lebanese city of Sidon on Thursday. AFP
A delegation comprising six Lebanese officers, headed by the army’s director of operations Georges Rizkallah, will participate in the talks on Friday.
A military source told AFP the delegation will “emphasise the need for a ceasefire, and will present the army’s plan for a state weapons monopoly and the extension of state authority across the country”.
Agence France-Presse
