Israel prepares for further advance in Lebanon, calls for evacuation of more southern towns

Israel has mobilized more brigades of reservists to southern Lebanon. The moves indicate that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) is preparing to continue its advance into the neighboring country, which it invaded definitively last Monday.

This Wednesday, the 98th Israeli Division reported that it clashed with several armed resistance cores of the Hezbollah group in its advance through southern Lebanon. According to the IDF, the division has engaged in short-range combat (CQC) against Hezbollah members, in addition to conducting airstrikes against gunmen and multiple positions of the terrorist group.

These engagements occurred as IDF troops advanced into semi-urban areas where they dismantled Hezbollah positions. At least one IDF soldier was killed in the fighting.

The Israeli army also issued a new call Wednesday for Lebanese civilians to "immediately" evacuate more locations in the south of the country, where further airstrikes are expected. Already since Monday, Israel has asked civilians to avoid moving on the southern side of the Litani River.

In a message on his Telegram account, Avichai Adraee, an Arabic-speaking IDF spokesman, asked civilians to evacuate for "safety" more than twenty additional locations, including Palestinian refugee camps around the city of Tyre.

The day before, this same spokesman called on the civilian population to evacuate more than twenty localities in southern Lebanon.

New rockets from Lebanon

About a hundred rockets were launched from Lebanon against northern Israel on Wednesday morning. They were distributed in several salvoes. Some of them were launched against the outskirts of the city of Haifa.

Another forty Hezbollah rockets were launched against the Safed area, in the northern region of Israel, along with the occasional kamikaze drone. They left no damage reported by the IDF.

The Israeli Air Force, for its part, carried out several airstrikes against Hezbollah positions in Lebanon.

IDF acknowledges damage to air bases after Iranian attack

This Wednesday, the Israel Defense Forces announced that several of its air bases sustained damage following Tuesday's Iranian missile strike. They claim, however, that no airborne aircraft were damaged by the Iranian missiles.

This damage would not have any negative effect on the functioning of Israeli air bases, which will continue their operations, according to the IDF. The Iranian attack did not cause serious injuries, and only two civilians were slightly injured by shrapnel in Tel Aviv. In addition, one person was confirmed dead in Jericho, West Bank, hit by an Iranian missile intercepted by air defense systems.