Israel expands evacuation orders to Baalbek, Beqaa | UNIFIL watchtower targeted again | Hezbollah clashes with Israeli forces in Qawzah

The Israeli military expanded on Thursday morning the scope of its evacuation orders, telling residents of Baalbek and the Beqaa Valley to leave their homes. 

Thursday morning’s evacuation orders mark a continued expansion of Israel’s escalation against Lebanon, which began in mid-September and has seen the Occupation instruct residents of Beirut and southern Lebanon to leave until further notice.

In Beqaa, which sits in eastern Lebanon along the border with Syria, the Israeli military issued evacuation orders on Thursday for residents in the area around a building in the Tamnine, as well as in Sareen al-Tahta. 

Residents of the town of Safri in Baalbek also received evacuation orders on Thursday.

Safri, Tamnine and other areas in Baalbek were targeted with Israeli airstrikes just hours later, as were districts and villages in Marjayoun, Nabatieh, Jabal al-Labbouneh and Alam in southwestern Lebanon.

Israeli forces conducting incursions into southern Lebanon also continued on Thursday to destroy the village of Mhaibib, a few kilometers aways from the Israel-Lebanon border.

Mhaibib resident Sheikh Qassem al-Masry told Mada Masr that Israeli forces conducted an incursion into the village at dawn on Thursday, destroying the shrine of the Prophet Benjamin, among other sites, before retreating. 

Footage of a large area in the village being destroyed by the detonation of explosives circulated online on Wednesday afternoon. Informed sources in southern Lebanon told Asharq Al-Awsat that the Israeli battle for control of Mhaibib “is part of a broader battle to control the heights in the border area,” as well as to prevent Hezbollah fighters from overlooking the lowlands in the frontier settlements. The sources added that the Israeli army is also fighting to control Awaida hill in Odaisseh, being the highest point in the area, but has failed so far.

Journalists questioned United States State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller on Thursday about the intent behind such wide-scale destruction in Israel’s operations in Lebanon which he has described as “limited.” Miller declined to comment on the purpose of the operation, saying only that he “cannot speak to what [Israel’s] intent was or what they were trying to accomplish.”

While Israel continued to claim that it was making “progress” in its operations on the southern Lebanese border, Hezbollah stated on Wednesday evening that the invading military had incurred losses such as “killings and injuries” among its ranks. Hezbollah said it had clashed “at zero distance” with the Israeli military on Wednesday afternoon near the town of al-Qawzah, where Occupation forces have been attempting incursions for several days. 

Also on Wednesday, the Israeli military attacked, once again, a watchtower where peacekeeping forces from the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) were stationed. An Israeli Merkava tank targeted a UNIFIL watchtower near the Kafr Kela village in southern Lebanon, the UN force said in a statement on Wednesday. “Yet again we see direct and apparently deliberate fire on a UNIFIL position,” the peacekeeping force said, adding that two cameras were destroyed and the targeted watchtower was damaged.

The attack is the latest in a series of Israeli raids on UNIFIL positions in recent days, leading to the injury of four of the peacekeeping troops stationed at the Lebanese border with Israel. 

The peacekeeping force called on the Israeli military, as well as all other actors, to ensure the safety and security of UN personnel and property and “to respect the inviolability of UN premises at all times.

Israel, which is attempting incursions into Lebanon at multiple points along the country’s southern border, has requested that the UNIFIL withdraw five kilometers further north, but the peacekeeping forces remain deployed along the Blue Line, a UN-designated border established in 2000 as the point behind which Israeli forces occupying Lebanon should withdraw.

The Israeli military denied that the attack was deliberate, saying that UNIFEL infrastructure posts and troops “are not a target.” 

Hezbollah continued its operations against settlements in northern Israel on Thursday, saying it launched a missile attack on the settlement of Kfar Vradim this morning. The group added that it also launched missiles on two Israeli Merkava tanks during an incursion on the Labbouneh Hill in southern Lebanon, destroying the tanks, killing one Israeli soldier and injuring another.