The Israeli army has threatened to hit ambulances in southern Lebanon, claiming they are being misused by Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, and also ordered more villages to evacuate.
The warning came after Israeli forces hit positions of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), injuring peacekeepers.
Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee on Saturday alleged that “Hezbollah elements are using ambulances to transport fighters and arms.” He did not provide any proof of his accusation.
“We call on medical teams to avoid contact with Hezbollah members and not to cooperate with them,” he said. The Israeli military “affirms that the necessary actions will be taken against any vehicle transporting armed individuals, regardless of its type”.
Adraee also warned residents of southern Lebanon not to go back to their homes as Israeli troops continued fighting Hezbollah fighters in the area.
“For your own protection, do not return to your homes until further notice. Do not go south, anyone who goes south may put his life at risk,” he said.
The Israeli military also ordered residents of 23 southern Lebanese villages to evacuate to areas north of the Awali River, according to a statement released on Saturday.
After it was reported that two UN peacekeepers were wounded by an Israeli attack near their watchtower in south Lebanon on Friday, UNIFIL said on Saturday that another peacekeeper was hit by gunfire on Friday, although it said it did not know who was responsible for that attack.
UNIFIL said the man was now stable after undergoing surgery to remove the bullet.
The statement also said its position in the southern Lebanese town of Ramyah sustained significant damage due to explosions from nearby shelling, but did not specify who was responsible.
‘Intense night of bombing’
Israeli air attacks continue to intensify across Lebanon, while Hezbollah has responded by launching rockets at Israel.
Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health said Israeli attacks on two villages on Saturday, one north of Beirut and another south of the capital, killed at least nine people.
An “Israeli enemy strike on [Maaysrah]”, a Shia-majority village in a mostly Christian mountain area north of Beirut, killed “five people and wounded 14 others”, the ministry said in a statement, adding separately that “four people were killed and 14 others wounded” in an “Israeli enemy strike” on Barja in the Shouf district south of the capital.
Since September 23, when Israel expanded its conflict against Hezbollah by bombarding southern Beirut and other strongholds of the group with deadly air attacks, killing more than 1,200 people in Lebanon.
An Israeli air raid on Baysarieh, a village in Sidon province, killed three people on Friday evening, including a two-year-old and a 16-year-old, and injured three others, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said.
In Baalbeck-Hermel province, located in the Bekaa Valley, five more people were killed and five wounded in additional air attacks on Friday.
“It has been an intense night of bombing at many locations in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon as was the case yesterday,” said Al Jazeera’s Assed Baig, reporting from Chtoura.
“What we have been witnessing is Israeli attacks on residential buildings.”
Intensified Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley and the southern suburbs of Beirut have forced approximately 1.2 million people from their homes since September 23, according to the Lebanese government.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Saturday that more Lebanese have now been displaced than during the last major war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, when around 1 million fled their homes.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah said it used “qualitative missiles” to hit an Israeli military base making weapons south of Haifa, in its seventh attack on Israeli positions on Saturday.
The group said the attack occurred at 6am (03:00 GMT) and included artillery fire targeting Israeli soldiers near the Lebanon border, the launch of a “guided missile” at the Ramyah site, and multiple rocket barrages aimed at Israeli positions.
Iran parliament speaker in Beirut
The speaker of Iran’s parliament and former air force commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, was visiting the Lebanese capital to meet his counterpart and Amal Movement leader Nabih Berri.
“Iran is ready to help the war-stricken, displaced and wounded people under the supervision of the Lebanese government and send assistance if an air corridor can be opened by the government for Beirut,” he told a joint news conference alongside Berri.
Ghalibaf visited the site of an Israeli attack on the densely populated Basta area that killed at least 22 people, accompanied by two Hezbollah legislators, according to the AFP news agency.
He is next heading to Geneva to take part in an assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, where he said he will discuss a shared “duty” to help besieged Palestinians and Lebanese people with his counterparts.
