BEIRUT: The Israeli army intensified strikes in southern Lebanon on Monday (May 25), as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had ordered the military to escalate its offensive in Lebanon in an effort to “crush” Hezbollah.
The airstrikes come as the United States and Iran seek to finalise the terms of an agreement to end the Middle East conflict, which could include the Lebanon front, where Israel and Hezbollah have waged war since Mar 2.
Despite a ceasefire that came into effect on Apr 17, Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah have continued to exchange fire on a near-daily basis.
“I have ordered an even greater acceleration of our operations,” Netanyahu said in a video statement posted on his Telegram channel.
“It is true that they are attacking us with drones, including fibre-optic drones, but we have teams working on countermeasures and we will solve this issue … We will intensify our blows, increase our firepower, and we will crush them.”
Following the call for escalation, an AFP correspondent saw residents fleeing the southern suburbs of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold.
The Israeli air force carried out successive strikes in the Bekaa valley in eastern Lebanon on Monday evening, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA).
Dozens of Israeli strikes earlier targeted several towns and villages in southern Lebanon in the early hours, killing three people in two cars and on a motorcycle, NNA reported.
Israeli airstrikes then targeted several towns near the ancient city of Tyre, according to the state-run agency.
Those strikes came after Israel issued evacuation orders for 10 villages, accusing Hezbollah of breaching the truce.
“In light of Hezbollah’s violation of the ceasefire agreement, the Israel Defense Forces are compelled to operate against it with force,” the military’s Arabic-language spokesman Colonel Avichay Adraee said in a social media post, listing the names of the villages.