DIBBINE – Israel’s air force struck different parts of southern Lebanon on Friday as the military issued evacuation warnings for nine villages, including one that has been spared much of the destruction and was sheltering thousands of people displaced by the three-month war.
Six people were killed, Lebanon's state news agency reported. The warnings forced hundreds of families to flee the village of Anqoun and the area of Aarnaya, on the edge of the predominantly Christian village of Maghdoucheh, near the southern port city of Sidon.
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The strikes came a day after the Hezbollah militant group rejected the latest ceasefire agreement between Israel and the Lebanese government, and demanded a complete Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.
Lebanon’s Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a strong ally of Hezbollah who has been acting as a mediator on behalf of the group, said in his first comment on the agreement reached in Washington this week that he accepts Hezbollah’s withdrawal from the areas south of the Litani River as long as it coincides with the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon.
The river, located about 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of the border with Israel, forms the boundary of a 2006 U.N.-established buffer zone in which Hezbollah is banned. Israeli troops have currently pushed far past the Litani River into southern Lebanon.
Berri added in a statement that the ceasefire should be “complete and comprehensive” without any restrictions or conditions on land, at sea and in the air, and “without bulldozing and demolishing everything that exists.” He was referring to wide areas that have been demolished by Israeli troops.
Berri criticized the creation of “pilot zones” in the agreement as well as calls for a unilateral ceasefire by Hezbollah and its withdrawal from border areas south of the Litani River.
Lebanese and UN troops take positions in a village vacated by Israeli soldiers
The war in Lebanon, where Israeli forces have seized large swaths of the south since March 2, threatens efforts to end the Iran war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has demanded that any lasting truce extend to Lebanon. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces elections later this year, wants to press ahead with Israel’s offensive until Hezbollah no longer poses a threat.
Nearly three hours after the evacuation warnings were issued by the Israeli military’s Arabic spokesperson, Israeli warplanes struck the villages, including Anqoun. About 2,500 people displaced by the fighting were sheltering in Anqoun, the Lebanese news agency NNA reported.
On Friday, U.N. peacekeepers and Lebanese troops were seen at an entrance of the village of Dibbine, near the town of Marjayoun, after Israeli forces withdrew following intense clashes with Hezbollah fighters.
The ceasefire agreement calls for Lebanon’s armed forces to take control of security zones in Lebanon from which the militants would be banned.
It was the first time Israeli troops pulled out from an area in southern Lebanon since the latest Israel-Hezbollah war began three months ago. At the entrance of the village, dozens of homes were seen destroyed as a result of the clashes and airstrikes. A bulldozer for the peacekeeping force was opening the main road leading to Dibbine.
Israeli troops have seized around a fifth of Lebanon, pushing further into the country’s south than at any time since the end of Israel’s 1982-2000 occupation. The latest declared ceasefire came about through U.S.-brokered talks between Israel and Lebanon’s government, which accuses Hezbollah of dragging the country into war and had made efforts to disarm it before the latest hostilities.
On Thursday night, an airstrike in the southern city of Tyre killed three and wounded seven people, including three children and two women, the Health Ministry said.
More than 3,500 people have been killed in Lebanon since the war began. The fighting has killed at least 29 Israeli soldiers and three civilians.
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Associated Press writer Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed to this report.