By Ahmed Kerdi and Maya Gebeily
BEIRUT, March 12 (Reuters) – The Israeli military on Thursday nearly doubled the area of southern Lebanon that it said residents should leave, hours after Israel’s defence minister said the military had been instructed to expand its operation in Lebanon.
Israel launched an air and ground offensive last week against Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, which launched attacks at Israel on March 2 that it said aimed to avenge the killing of Iran’s supreme leader at the start of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
Hezbollah has fired rockets and drones at Israel every day since, including its largest barrage late on Wednesday that triggered heavy Israeli strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Israel has pounded the country’s south, east and the capital’s southern suburbs, killing more than 600 people. It has also ordered mass evacuations in those same areas, pushing more than 800,000 people out of their homes.
Thursday’s new orders, issued by an Israeli military spokesperson on X, mean Israel has now ordered residents out of their homes in a tenth of Lebanese territory, according to a Reuters calculation.
ISRAEL ORDERS EVACUATION IN CENTRAL BEIRUT
The Israeli military spokesperson said residents of south Lebanon should move north of the Zahrani river, about 40 km (25 miles) north of the Israeli border.
The spokesperson also issued an evacuation order for a neighbourhood in central Beirut near a row of upscale restaurants, saying the Israeli military would strike a building there.
Hezbollah’s rocket and drone attack on Wednesday was synced with an attack from Tehran, according to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. An Israeli defense official said it was the first coordinated action between the two against Israel since the war began.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said the military had been instructed to expand its operations in Lebanon.
“We promised quiet and security to the communities of the north, and that is exactly what we will deliver,” he said at a meeting with senior military officials.
Katz warned Lebanese President Joseph Aoun that if the Lebanese government could not prevent Hezbollah from attacking Israel, “we will take the territory and do it ourselves,” according to a statement released by his office.
Lebanon said last year it aims to establish a state monopoly on arms and its cabinet last week outlawed any military activities not carried out by the Lebanese state.
On Wednesday, Foreign Minister Youssef Raggi summoned the Iranian charge d’affaires over the joint attack, saying it violated last week’s decree, said a source familiar with the matter.
‘MY HEART IS DEAD’
Israel says it has killed several members of Iran’s Quds Force in Lebanon, including in a strike on a hotel in the heart of Beirut on Sunday.
A pre-dawn strike early on Thursday in Beirut killed 12 people, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
It hit a seafront sidewalk where dozens of displaced families had set up tents and were sleeping out in the streets.
“Who’s in these tents? There are children, elderly people, and women in them. Israel… what justification will it create for last night’s strike?” said Abu Ali, a displaced man.
“My heart is dead, my heart is dead. I’m not like before, when one would be afraid only for himself,” he told Reuters.
The head of the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration condemned Thursday’s strike. “Many displaced people who have been forced to make the streets of Beirut their home … Tents and makeshift shelters offer no protection from the dangers of bombardment,” Amy Pope said in a statement.
(Reporting by Maya Gebeily in Beirut and Alexander Cornwell in Jerusalem, Editing by Timothy Heritage and Ros Russell)
