Israel has renewed attacks on southern Lebanon as it presses ahead with a ground offensive, as well as launching new strikes on Beirut shortly after attacking areas around the capital that had so far been away from the conflict.
The Lebanese Civil Defense told Al Jazeera that at least four people were killed in an attack on a car in the southern city of Kafr Rumman.
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Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported a series of attacks in the Jabal Amel region south of the Litani River, including the towns of Arzoun, Jaouya, Hadatha, Jamijmeh, Dbeibin and Haris.
Local media reported that an Israeli drone struck near Ghandour hospital in Nabatieh al-Fouka, killing one person and injuring another.
Israel’s military has targeted bridges in southern Lebanon in what observers say is an attempt to cut off the region from the rest of the country. The deep ground attack launched by the Israeli military on March 16 has raised concerns as Israeli leaders openly said last week that they planned to demolish many homes.
Eli Yacoub, head of Mercy Corps’ Lebanon crisis analysis team, said the area south of the Litani River is not seeing a military surge, but rather “a systematic isolation of the entire population.”
“The destruction of major bridges and transport routes is leaving 150,000 people without humanitarian assistance, leading to a rapid decline in access to basic needs and essential services,” Yacoub told Al Jazeera.
“We are seeing the re-emergence of tactics used in the 2006 war, particularly targeting transportation infrastructure to isolate the South. The difference today is the scale of need and the fragility of systems already under stress, making the humanitarian consequences even more severe.”
Yacoub said the scale of infrastructure destruction would result in far more than an immediate crisis.
“This sets development back years, if not decades, and dramatically increases the cost and complexity of recovery,” he said.
Israel began airstrikes across Lebanon on March 2 after Lebanese armed group Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel in response to the US-Israeli war over Iran.
The Lebanese group said on Tuesday that its fighters launched rocket attacks on the Hurfish, Shlomi and Nahariya settlements in northern Israel. It said it also targeted a gathering of Israeli army vehicles and soldiers at the Fatima Gate on the Israel-Lebanon border.
More attacks reported in Lebanon’s capital
Israeli military spokesman Avichai Adraee ordered the evacuation of residents from seven neighborhoods in Beirut’s southern suburbs, saying the military would attack “Hezbollah infrastructure”.
Shortly afterward, Israeli airstrikes were reported targeting Bir al-Abed in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
The latest attacks came hours after overnight attacks in the mainly Christian town of Ain Saadeh in the hills east of the capital. The Public Health Ministry’s Emergency Operations Center said three people, including two women, were killed and three others injured in the attack.
Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Beirut, said that Ain Saadeh “is outside Hezbollah’s influence, and those killed were clearly not part of the conflict.”
“Tensions are rising in those areas because people are accusing Hezbollah and its supporters of taking refuge there,” Khodr said.
More than one million people have been displaced across Lebanon, with several thousands taking refuge in the hills of Mount Lebanon.
Al Jazeera’s Heidi Pett, reporting from the site of the attack in Ain Saadeh, said the attack appeared to be an assassination attempt as Israeli forces targeted a specific apartment.
“(It’s) an area that was not warned about or targeted before, an area where people thought they would be safe,” Pett said. “This has caused a lot of concern, leaving neighbors and first responders confused and frightened.”
“From what we can tell, the apartment that Israeli forces were moving into was on the third floor,” the reporter said. “Talking to people here, they say the apartment was vacant at the time. However, the damage was so severe that people on the second floor died.”
On Sunday, an Israeli airstrike on the Jennah area of southern Beirut killed five people, including a 15-year-old girl and three Sudanese civilians. Eight children are also among the 52 injured.
At least 1,461 people have been killed and more than 4,000 injured in the conflict in Lebanon, which is entering its sixth week.
