JERUSALEM/BEIRUT: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered troops to move further into Lebanon in the battle against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group, he said on Sunday (May 31), despite a ceasefire announced more than six weeks ago.
The fighting in Lebanon has been the broadest spillover of the Iran war, displacing more than 1.2 million Lebanese through Israeli strikes and evacuation orders since Mar 2, when Hezbollah began firing rockets and drones into Israel to back its ally Iran.
The incursion has so far killed more than 3,370 people, according to the Lebanese government. Israel says 24 of its soldiers and four civilians have been killed over the same period. Tens of thousands of Israelis in the country’s north have also been displaced by Hezbollah rockets and drones.
In the latest advance, Israeli troops seized the 900-year-old Beaufort Castle and a strategic ridge in southern Lebanon, the military said, a day after one of the heaviest days of Hezbollah fire toward northern Israel since the April ceasefire, prompting school closures and restrictions.
“I instructed the (military) to expand its ground manoeuvre in Lebanon,” Netanyahu said in a statement.
Citing the escalating violence in Lebanon, France called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Monday, its foreign ministry said in a statement.