JERUSALEM – Israel’s military warned on Feb 2 it would soon strike what it called Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, issuing evacuation warnings for buildings in two villages.
November 2024 truce
that sought to end more than a year of hostilities including two months of all-out war between Israel and the Iran-backed group, Israel has kept up regular strikes on Lebanon and has maintained troops in five areas it deems strategic.
The Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesman, Colonel Avichay Adraee, said on Feb 2 that the army would soon “strike military infrastructure belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organisation, in response to its prohibited attempts to rebuild its activities in the area”.
In a post on social media platform X, he told residents of some buildings in Kfar Tibnit and Ain Qana “to evacuate them immediately”.
Lebanon said one person was killed and several others wounded in Israeli strikes in the country’s south on Feb 1, while Israel said it hit Hezbollah targets.
In a statement on Feb 2, the Israeli military said it had killed Ali al-Hadi Mustafa al-Haqqani, a senior Hezbollah air defence officer, in a strike on southern Lebanon a day earlier.
In a strike on southern Lebanon on Feb 2, the military said it killed an operative who “was involved in attempts to rehabilitate Hezbollah military infrastructure”.
It said the operatives’ activities “constitute a violation of the ceasefire understandings between Israel and Lebanon”. Lebanon has repeatedly protested against Israeli strikes on the country as violations of the ceasefire.
In January, Lebanon’s army said it had completed the first phase of its plan to disarm Hezbollah, covering the area south of the Litani river, around 30km from the Israeli border.
Israel, which accuses Hezbollah of rearming, has criticised Lebanon’s army’s progress as insufficient, while
Hezbollah has rejected calls to surrender its weapons
.
More than 360 people have been killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon since the ceasefire, according to an AFP news agency tally of health ministry reports. AFP