Residents flee Wardaniyeh after Israeli evacuation order | Nabatieh funeral for 16 killed in municipality airstrike | Hezbollah battles Israeli forces assailing Awaida hill

Israeli airstrikes targeted on Thursday night the village of Wardaniyeh, in Mount Lebanon, following new evacuation orders by the Israeli military.

The Israeli military had ordered the evacuation of a building in Wardaniyeh, as well as the 500-meter radius around it, after which residents of the area hurried to leave, with many heading toward the village of Ramliyeh, a Mada Masr correspondent reported. 

Wardaniyeh lies on Lebanon’s southern coast, an area to which many residents of inland areas in the south had fled from constant Israeli airstrikes.

About a quarter of the village’s residents left after the evacuation order, along with displaced Syrian nationals who were living in tents nearby, according to Mada Masr’s correspondent. The displaced took shelter on the sides of the roads to Ramliyeh and Saida.

In the city of Nabatieh, in the south, which has been frequently targeted since the expansion of the Occupation’s aggression on Lebanon, residents attended a funeral for the victims of Israeli strikes, following the bombing of the city’s main market and its multiplicity buildings in the past weeks.

The commercial city’s market has become a disaster area, heavily affecting residents, Mada Masr’s correspondent reported.

Elsewhere in the Nabatieh Governorate, in the southern village of Taybeh, Hezbollah fighters are trying to repel an Israeli force seeking to control Awaida hill, which is currently under continuous aerial bombardment and artillery fire by the Occupation, a source from the Lebanese military told Mada Masr. 

Controlling this vantage point would allow Israeli forces to control the south and north of the Litani River, with areas north of the river coming within the range of their fire, the source explained.

Hezbollah also said in statements throughout the last 24 hours that it launched rocket fire at Israeli soldiers in Labbouneh, Blida and Adeisseh, Lebanese villages in the south where Israel has attempted incursions since it launched ground operations in Lebanon at the beginning of October. 

The Israeli military reported that three Israeli soldiers from the Commando Brigade’s Maglan unit, and another reservist officer from the Golani Brigade’s Unit 5111th were severely injured on Thursday night during combat in southern Lebanon and on the border.

Israeli airstrikes on Friday also destroyed a mosque in Majdal Selm, a village near the Lebanese border, according to a Lebanese internal security source who spoke to Mada Masr on condition of anonymity. 

A church in Yaroun, and two mosques in Yaroun and Maroun al-Ras have been destroyed as Israeli air raids have ripped through large portions of infrastructure in the border villages in recent weeks. 

Hezbollah said on Thursday evening that it had given orders for its fighters to escalate against Israel, announcing the beginning of a new phase of the war. 

2,412 people have been killed in Lebanon and 11,285 have been wounded since Israel began its airstrikes on the country in October 2023, the Lebanese Health Ministry said on Thursday evening.