Israeli Military Orders Residents of Eight Lebanese Towns to Leave Ahead of Strikes

The Israeli military warned residents of eight Lebanese towns outside the “buffer zone” to leave their homes immediately on Thursday ahead of strikes, according to Reuters reporting carried by U.S. News & World Report.

“In the historic heart of Bint Jbeil, a 400-year-old Great Mosque once stood as a testament to the city’s enduring cultural memory”

Al Jazeera

The warning came as the “buffer zone” in southern Lebanon was occupied by Israeli troops before a ceasefire that “was announced earlier this month but has failed to fully halt hostilities.”

Al Jazeera

Reuters said the warning was directed at residents of eight towns outside the buffer zone, with the Israeli military telling them to “leave their homes immediately on Thursday ahead of strikes.”

The NPR report described the buffer zone as a “huge swath of land along the border” that the Israeli military is occupying to keep Hezbollah from firing rockets or launching attacks into Israel.

NPR also said that area includes “dozens of towns and villages,” and that the Israeli military is occupying it despite a ceasefire that has not stopped the war.

In the same Reuters-linked account, the “remains of damaged structures” in the Lebanese village of Kfar Kila were shown from the Israeli side of the Israel-Lebanon border, reinforcing the physical impact around the border area.

The BBC later described a separate but related pattern of lethal strikes in southern Lebanon, saying two successive Israeli air strikes on a building killed nine people including three emergency workers in the town of Majdal Zoun, which the Lebanese prime minister called a “war crime.”

Across multiple reports, the ceasefire is described as fragile and incomplete, with fighting continuing and evacuation orders repeating.

NPR said the previous 10-day ceasefire was “shaky,” and it described how Israel struck the Qasmiyeh Bridge in the final hours before the temporary ceasefire was announced, calling it “the last intact crossing to the south.”

Al-Jazeera Net

NPR’s Kat Lonsdorf reported that during the war Israel struck every major bridge crossing the river, saying they were used by Hezbollah for weapons transport, while NPR also said civilians use these bridges and they are used for aid workers to get into the areas most affected by the conflict.

NPR quoted Lebanese civil defense head Ali Safieddine as saying construction crews tried to patch the bridges, with a “single-file line of cars carefully crawling across a pile of gravel” used to fill in the strike site.

NPR also said that people are eager to go back south now that a ceasefire is in effect, but Safieddine is “worried what could happen if people need to evacuate again if the ceasefire ends with all the bridges damaged.”

The BBC described the ceasefire as having “led to a reduction in the hostilities but failed to completely stop the war,” and it tied the Tuesday strike to that ongoing pattern.

The Guardian similarly said the fraying ceasefire failed to stop fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, describing Hezbollah drone attacks and Israeli airstrikes continuing while displacement orders were issued.

In a separate account, Euronews said Israeli strikes killed eight people including three rescue workers “despite an ongoing ceasefire,” and it described how both sides trade blame over violations of the truce.

One of the most detailed incidents described by the BBC and echoed by Euronews involves attacks that killed emergency personnel in southern Lebanon.

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Al-Manar TV Lebanon

The BBC said two successive Israeli air strikes on a building in southern Lebanon on Tuesday killed nine people, including three emergency workers, in what Lebanon’s prime minister described as a “war crime.”

It said the Lebanese health ministry stated the three members of the Lebanese Civil Defense had been sent to rescue those wounded in the first strike in the town of Majdal Zoun, but they were “trapped under rubble caused by the second strike.”

The BBC named the three rescue workers killed on Tuesday as Hussein Ghadbouni, Hussein Sati and Hadi Daher.

Euronews reported that Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli strikes on Tuesday killed eight people, including three rescue workers, and it repeated the ministry’s wording that the “three paramedics from the Lebanese civil defence” were “trapped under the rubble after a strike that targeted them while they were carrying out a rescue mission.”

Euronews also described additional fatalities in other towns, saying the ministry reported “five martyrs” in Majdal Zoun in a “preliminary toll,” and it later added that another two people were killed and 13 injured in Jebchit, while one person was killed and 15 were hurt in Jwaya.

The Daily Sabah account also described the Majdal Zoun strike as killing eight people including civil defense rescuers, and it said Lebanon’s health ministry reported “three paramedics from the Lebanese civil defense who were trapped under the rubble after a strike that targeted them while they were carrying out a rescue mission.”

The reporting also shows how different outlets frame Israel’s actions and Hezbollah’s role, often using distinct language for the same events.

The BBC described the tactic as “double tap,” saying it “sees an initial attack followed by a second or more, often hitting civilians and rescuers,” and it noted that human rights groups say deliberate attacks on health workers could constitute a war crime.

BBC

The BBC also quoted Lebanon’s Prime Minister Nawaf Salam condemning the “targeting” of rescuers as a “war crime perpetrated by Israel,” while it said Israel’s military claimed it had struck a Hezbollah commander and that details were “under review.”

Euronews reported that Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun denounced the attack on Majdal Zoun, saying “Israel continues to violate international laws and conventions that protect civilians,” and it also included Israel’s position that it would leave south Lebanon when “Hezbollah and other terror organisations... are dismantled.”

The Guardian described Hezbollah drone attacks and said Hezbollah claimed Tuesday’s attack injured several Israeli soldiers, while the Israeli military only confirmed interceptor missiles had been fired at incoming Hezbollah drones.

The Guardian also said Hezbollah’s use of small, fibre-optic-guided drones has “managed to evade Israeli aerial defences,” and it reported that the drones have a range of up to 9 miles (15km).

In contrast, Al Jazeera’s “Mapping the destruction” investigation described a deliberate Israeli policy to render southern Lebanon permanently uninhabitable, saying satellite imagery and open-source intelligence revealed a deliberate policy to “wiped out” Lebanon’s Bint Jbeil and that Israeli operations expanded into a policy of systematically “wiping out” civilian homes and infrastructure.

The stakes described by NPR, Euronews, and The Independent Arabic-language reporting emphasize displacement, infrastructure destruction, and the risk that evacuation routes could fail again.

NPR reported that a school was serving as a shelter for “some of the more than 1 million people displaced by the war,” and it described “Lines of laundry crisscross the courtyard” and kids playing even as “Many still can't go home despite the ceasefire.”

Daily Sabah

NPR also described the Israeli military occupying a buffer zone that includes “dozens of towns and villages,” and it included the account of Zainab Mahdi, who said she has been living in the area since 2024 after the last war between Israel and Hezbollah broke out, with her home heavily damaged and her village’s status described as “completely gone now, along with most of the village.”

NPR said Mahdi is “feeling a lot of fear,” asking, “what if I can't return in my lifetime?”

The Independent Arabic-language report described an elderly couple, Iman, 78, and Dawood, 85, who wept in a classroom shelter, and it quoted Iman saying, “Mohammed cared for us and looked after us. Today the light of my life went out.”

It also quoted Dawood saying, “When they told me that my son had been killed, I collapsed. I collapsed completely,” and it included the statement, “He left behind three children with no father. In my heart there is a fire and I feel that I have lost a piece of me.”

The Independent Arabic-language report said Israeli airstrikes across Lebanon have killed more than 770 people and injured about two thousand others, and it said these strikes forced more than 800,000 people to flee their homes, “roughly one in seven people in this small country,” citing the Norwegian Refugee Council.

Euronews added that Lebanon’s health ministry raised the death toll of the Israel-Hezbollah war to 2,534 on Tuesday and said 7,863 have been wounded since the war broke out, while it also said the war has displaced more than 1 million people and caused destruction worth billions of dollars.