Israel’s latest evacuation orders expand aggression in Baalbek | Bombing on Sarafand, Haret Saida kills 23 | Hezbollah targets Israeli forces in Khiam, Shebaa Farms

Israel issued evacuation orders for residents of the city of Baalbek on Wednesday — the first time it has imposed its instructions for people to leave their homes in Lebanon’s northeastern governorate. 

The order expanded the scope of Israel’s aggression on the country even as the Israeli media reports that its country has achieved its goals and is ready to “promote a diplomatic resolution” with Hezbollah ahead of an imminent visit which advisors to the president of the United States are reportedly due to pay to Israel .

Clashes continued between Hezbollah and Israeli forces attempting to advance on Khiam for a second day, while the former also launched rockets at Israeli forces in the Shebaa Farms area, the party said. 

Meanwhile, search and rescue operations continued on Wednesday for the victims of Israeli airstrikes which targeted the coastal town of Sarafand, and the Haret Saida neighborhood further north along the coast, killing 23 people.

Evacuation orders for residents of Baalbek as Israel expands scope of aggression 

Early on Wednesday afternoon, residents of the city of Baalbek rushed to leave their homes after Israel issued evacuation orders for a large portion of the city. 

The orders expand the scope of Israel’s ongoing aggression on Lebanon, representing the first time that residents of the northeastern governorate are ordered to leave their homes by Israel. 

Wednesday’s evacuation orders spread panic among the residents of the city, who had barely recovered from a violent wave of bombing which took place on Monday and saw Israel launch over 30 strikes and kill at least 66 people, including women, children and the elderly, in sites across the governorate.  In the historic city of Baalbek itself, six people from the same family including a child were killed. A journalist from the area, however, told Mada Masr on Tuesday that Israeli warplanes launched over 70 missiles in under eight hours in total, and that the bombs used were heavy and had left widespread destruction in their wake.

Although Israel has carried out almost daily airstrikes on the northeastern governorate of Baalbek-Hermel for over a month, Monday represented by far the most violent day. 

Israel’s evacuation orders, meanwhile, have previously ordered the immediate departure of hundreds of thousands of residents of Lebanon’s south and of the southern suburbs of Beirut — but have not extended to the country’s northeast, where the governorate borders Syria. 

The latest orders are set to exacerbate a growing wave of displacement in Lebanon, where Nasser Yassin, an official tasked with handling the government’s crisis response, estimated that there are over a million internally displaced people already. 

Roads from Baalbek to Arsal were gridlocked with residents fleeing the area, the National News Agency reported, after the governor of Baalbek instructed them to move toward Arsaal, via the Ainata  route to Akkar, or to Zahle via the International Road. 

The escalatory step against residents of Lebanon’s northeast came despite reports in the Israeli media that the military has almost achieved its objectives in Lebanon and that the government is ready to seek a diplomatic resolution and end its assault. 

After US Special Envoy Amos Hochstein visited Beirut last week, the presidential advisor is reportedly due in Tel Aviv at the end of this week to continue talks toward a resolution to end the war in Lebanon. 

Yet major obstacles to achieving a viable deal remain in place, according to two sources informed of regional talks toward a ceasefire for Lebanon who spoke to Mada Masr in recent weeks, saying that Israel is seeking an agreement that will allow it to undertake active operations in Lebanon in the future — a step that moves beyond the existing framework between Israel and Lebanon in United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which was put in place to conclude the 2006 war. Several security council parties are unlikely to accept Israel’s requests, according to one of the sources. 

Israeli bombing kills 13 in Sarafand, 10 in Haret Saida 

Thirteen people were killed in an airstrike on Sarafand on Tuesday night, including a six-month old boy, according to Ali Khalifa, the head of the local authorities’ crisis management unit in the town. 

The raid struck a home in the coastal town which lies in the South Lebanon Governorate, to the south of Saida in the Sidon district. Footage from the scene which circulated online on Wednesday showed the building had been razed to the ground.

Khalifa told Mada Masr on Wednesday morning that the strike hit the center of the town and that members of more than one family were killed in the strike. 

“There are 13 martyrs so far and around 30 people injured,” said Khalifa, adding that “there are still several people under the rubble.” “We are exhausting all efforts to save the remaining people.”

Eyewitnesses said that the attack destroyed a four-floor residential building, of which the first floor was a commercial store and the rest were residential apartments inhabited by five families. A large number of cars parked in the area were burned and destroyed, and several houses adjacent to the targeted area were cracked or damaged by the blast.

Khalifa said that Sarafand has been targeted 17 times so far in Israel’s latest round of aggression on Lebanon. “This crime is the responsibility of the entire international community,” he told Mada Masr, “it is one of the daily crimes committed by the Israeli enemy against our land and our people, and none of the decision-makers are moving.” 

Also on Tuesday night, Israel launched two airstrikes on Haret Saida — an area on the outskirts of Saida, the city considered the capital of southern Lebanon. Ten people were killed in two separate blasts, according to Lebanese media. 

Speaking to Mada Masr from Haret Saida on Wednesday morning, deputy head of the Trade Association in Saida, Hassan Fadel Salah, said that two women were removed from under the rubble of one of the buildings targeted on Tuesday night. 

Clashes in Khiam, Shebaa Farms 

Clashes which began in Khiam on Tuesday continued, after a Lebanese military source told Mada Masr that Israeli tanks were attempting an incursion on the town several kilometers north of the border between Israel and Lebanon. 

Hezbollah continued to launch rocket salvos at Israeli “gatherings” near Khiam, the party said in a statement on Wednesday.

Hezbollah also said on Wednesday that it had launched rockets at Israeli military gatherings in Bawabet Shebaa, a site in the Shebaa Farms area near Lebanon’s border with the occupied Golan Heights. Shebaa has also been occupied by Israel since its invasion of Lebanon in 2006.