All areas south of Lebanon’s Zahrani River were reclassified as “combat zones” by Israel on Tuesday May 27th—with residents advised to leave.
The area in question—which runs approximately 40km from the border separating southern Lebanon and northern Israel—is reported to contain a number of “Hezbollah infrastructure sites,” including command centres. Senior Israel Defense Forces (IDF) commander Eyal Zamir announced:
we are intensifying our operations in order to strike ever more severe blows to the Hezbollah organisation.
This follows a first wave of heavy strikes on the region, prefigured by Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu vowing to “crush” Hezbollah. Despite the April 17th ceasefire, Israel has raided south and east Lebanon, while Hezbollah has claimed its fighters clashed with Israeli forces in the south. A key change, apart from the advice that residents evacuate, is that IDF soldiers will now operate outside the “yellow line,” which runs around 10km deep inside Lebanese territory and had previously acted as a marker of the terrain held by the IDF.
Tehran-backed terror group Hezbollah renewed its campaign of missile and drone attacks on Israel after Iran’s then-Supreme Leader was killed in a co-ordinated U.S.-Israeli operation.
