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The Israeli military has ordered people living in more than a quarter of Lebanon to flee, according to a UN calculation, as its fight with the Iran-backed Shia militant group Hizbollah threatens to engulf the Mediterranean country.
The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR gave the estimate on Tuesday, a day after the Israel Defense Forces warned civilians to empty another 18 villages in south Lebanon.
More than 1mn people have fled their homes in Lebanon in under a month, according to its government, a dramatic forced movement of the population in a country of only about 5mn inhabitants with a land mass smaller than the US state of Connecticut.
Israeli forces began a ground offensive in south Lebanon two weeks ago, in their fourth invasion of the country in under five decades. They had already destroyed large parts of the densely populated southern Beirut suburb where Hizbollah had its headquarters, and killed many top militant commanders in air strikes, including former leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Rema Jamous Imseis, Middle East director of UNHCR, told journalists in Geneva that “over 25 per cent of [Lebanon is] under a direct Israeli military evacuation order”.
“People are heeding these calls to evacuate and they’re fleeing with almost nothing,” she added, saying that 80 per cent of the shelters opened by the Lebanese government — mostly in schools — were now full.
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Already home to 1.5mn Syrian refugees and stricken by a multiyear economic crisis, Lebanon is paying a heavy price in the latest war.
Lebanese authorities say Israeli bombing has killed more than 2,300 people and injured almost 11,000, mostly in the past three weeks, with Israeli attacks reaching areas far beyond Hizbollah’s traditional bastions of support in the south.
Hizbollah fighters and Israeli soldiers are clashing in southern Lebanon’s hilly border areas, while Israeli jets pummel towns and villages and Hizbollah launches rockets towards Israel.
About 60,000 Israelis have fled northern Israel because of the missiles during the past year, the Israeli government has said. Hizbollah began the latest round of cross-border fire after Hamas attacked Israel last October, killing 1,200 people and triggering Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.
Israel’s evacuation warnings have been criticised by human rights groups for failing to give enough notice to civilians and, in Gaza, directing people to equally dangerous areas at risk of Israeli attacks.
The IDF says it is trying to avoid harming civilians and that its fight is with Hizbollah. An Israeli intelligence official said Hizbollah was using both rural and urban areas, “and we want the IDF to have as much operational freedom as possible”.
The growing area of fighting underscores fears of a prolonged war, calling into question the Israeli military’s original announcement of “limited, localised, and targeted ground raids” against Hizbollah.
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Israel has come under increasing international pressure to restrain its war on Hizbollah in Lebanon, as civilian casualties have mounted, and Israeli strikes have killed healthcare workers and injured UN peacekeeping troops patrolling the border.
Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati on Tuesday told Al Jazeera that US officials had given him a “kind of guarantee” during meetings last week that the pressure on Beirut and its southern suburbs would be reduced, following three Israeli strikes in the heart of Beirut since the invasion.
After weeks of debilitating blows against the militant group, Hizbollah’s new strategy is focused on “hurting the enemy”, including targeting deep inside Israel as far as Haifa and even beyond, Hizbollah deputy secretary-general Naim Qassem said on Tuesday.
“Since the enemy targeted all of Lebanon, we have the right, from a defensive position, to target any point in [Israel],” Qassem said in a pre-recorded public address.
“I am telling [Israel], the solution is a ceasefire, and after the ceasefire, according to the indirect agreement, the [Israeli] settlers will return north,” he said, “We are not speaking from a position of weakness. if the Israelis do not want that, we will continue.”
A large portion of his speech was aimed at his domestic audience, many of whom are suffering from Israeli air strikes and displacement. “We will not abandon you,” he said. “Victory is with patience.”