At least six people have been killed in a new wave of Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon, state media reports, as the Israeli military claims to have surrounded a main town there. The state-run National News Agency (NNA) said one person was killed and nine others injured when fighter jets attacked the town of Bazouriyeh. Elsewhere, Israeli air strikes killed one person in the town of Nabatiyeh El Faouqa and three others in the towns of Sir el Gharbiyeh and Choukine.
NNA said Israeli warplanes struck a centre of the International Committee of the Red Cross in the city of Tyre. One person injured in the attack was later pronounced dead. Several Red Cross vehicles were damaged.
Also in Tyre, the news agency said several people were killed in an air strike on an orchard, without providing a specific number. Israeli artillery shelling was reported in the towns of Haniyeh, Qlaileh, Mansouri, Bayt Yahun, Tayr Harfa, Majdal Zoun, and Sama’ah in the south. The Israeli army said it will have full operational control of the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil within days, after claiming to have killed more than 100 Hezbollah fighters there over the past week in air strikes and “face-to-face” confrontations.
The announcement marks a significant advance in Israel’s ongoing invasion of southern Lebanon. Hezbollah said it has been engaged for days in fighting with Israeli forces in Bint Jbeil, 5km (3 miles) from the Israeli border. The town has long been both a symbolic and strategic flashpoint in confrontations between Israeli forces and the Iranian-backed group.
Bint Jbeil saw some of the fiercest fighting during the war in 2006, when Hezbollah’s resistance there became central to the group’s narrative of defiance. It was from the stadium in Bint Jbeil in 2000 that the group’s former chief Hassan Nasrallah delivered the “Liberation” speech, following Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon after 22 years of occupation. On Thursday, Hezbollah said it was engaged in “point-blank” clashes with Israeli forces in the town.
Since then, the group has repeatedly reported the targeting of Israeli forces and vehicles there, most recently on Sunday with “intense clashes”. On Monday, the NNA reported Israeli artillery shelling at the entrance to the town. The escalation in Bint Jbeil comes as diplomatic efforts to contain the cross-border fighting have increased over the past few days.
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