“Hezbollah is using civilians as human shields to carry out attacks against Israel,” warns IDF spokesman.
By World Israel News Staff
The Israeli military warned Lebanese citizens not to travel south of the Litani River in an Arabic-language message on Tuesday morning, hours after Israeli soldiers began a late-night invasion of the region.
“There is intense fighting in southern Lebanon, in which Hezbollah operatives are using the civilian environment and you as a human shield to organize to carry out attacks,” Col. Avichay Adraee, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman, said in a recorded video statement published on social media platform X.
“For the benefit of your personal safety, we ask you to avoid traveling in vehicles…south of the Litani River. This warning is in effect until further notice.”
The vast majority of civilians had already evacuated from their villages in southern Lebanon prior to the escalation between Israel and Hezbollah, which began about two weeks ago.
Days before the beeper explosions served as an opening salvo to an intensive bombing and assassination campaign, it was believed that just 20 percent of southern Lebanon’s residents had remained in their homes.
The invasion comes after Israel assassinated Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, along with the entirety of the terror organization’s senior leadership.
Some one million Lebanese have been displaced by the ongoing fighting between Hezbollah and Israel, with tens of thousands said to have crossed the border into neighboring Syria.
“Lebanon is facing one of the most dangerous stages in its history,” Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati told representatives from UN aid organizations and international ambassadors on Tuesday.
The decision to invade Lebanon is “important, correct and necessary,” Public Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said in a statement on Tuesday.
“At the same time, this is the time not to stop, [we must] continue doing everything to crush Hezbollah, with all our might,” he continued.
“I pray for the success of the IDF soldiers who are currently fighting in difficult conditions in southern Lebanon; the people of Israel stand behind them.”