Israeli Strikes Target Southern Lebanon After Evacuation Warnings

Israeli strikes targeted southern and eastern Lebanon on Saturday, before and after two Israeli calls to evacuate about twenty localities, including the city of Nabatiyeh, reported the official Lebanese news agency Ani.\n\nThe strikes persist as the United States and Iran appear close to finalizing an agreement to end the war in the Middle East, which could include the Lebanese dossier.\n\nThe Israeli army issued two warnings covering 24 localities, located in Nabatiyeh and its surroundings, as well as closer to the coast, ordering them to "head north of the Zahrani River", about forty kilometers from the border with Israel.\n\nThe Israeli bombings targeted several sectors designated by Israel, notably around Nabatiyeh, according to Ani.\n\nAn AFP photographer heard detonations coming from Kfar Remman, regularly bombed, and saw nearby a plume of white smoke above Kfartebnit, not included in the latest Israeli warnings.\n\nThe Lebanese army, which has stayed out of the conflict, announced that one of its soldiers had been "seriously injured" after being targeted by "an Israeli drone" on a road linking Kfar Remman to Nabatiyeh.\n\nAni also reported artillery fire in Nabatiyeh and its surroundings. These fires were confirmed by an AFP correspondent in Nabatiyeh, described as nearly deserted.\n\n### Prestigious festival postponed\n\nHezbollah, for its part, said it had thwarted an attempted "infiltration" by an Israeli force on the outskirts of Kfartebnit, in the vicinity of Nabatiyeh, on the night of Friday to Saturday, after having ambushed them followed by a "clash (...) with medium weapons".\n\nThe pro-Iranian movement also reported clashes on Saturday evening with Israeli forces in the vicinity of Majdal Zoun, closer to the border with Israel, and claimed attacks in these two localities and others in the south.\n\nThe Israeli army, for its part, said it had "struck more than 70 Hezbollah infrastructure sites in southern Lebanon over the past 24 hours" and "eliminated" some of its members.\n\nEarlier on Saturday, it announced it had intercepted a "hostile aerial vehicle" that entered northern Israel from Lebanon, following four similar incidents, which caused no significant damage, according to it.\n\nIn the east of the country, regularly pounded, the prestigious Baalbeck International Festival, a pillar of Lebanese cultural life for more than seven decades, has been "postponed to a later date (...) due to the current security and political situation", the festival committee announced.\n\nNew strikes targeted the outskirts of two localities in this district without prior warning, Ani reported.\n\n### "Crucial test"\n\nLebanon was drawn into the war on March 2, when Hezbollah targeted Israeli territory in support of Iran after the Israeli-American offensive of February 28.\n\nSince then, Israel has conducted operations that have killed 3,756 people, according to the latest official count. Hezbollah claims daily attacks against the Israeli army.\n\nAnd this despite a new conditional ceasefire agreement announced in early June following talks between Lebanon and Israel in Washington, rejected by Hezbollah.\n\nThe Lebanese front constitutes a major component of the negotiations between Washington and Tehran aimed at ending the war in the Middle East.\n\nThis agreement is about to be finalized, according to Donald Trump and the Pakistani mediator, and indeed includes Lebanon, according to a senior American official, as requested by Tehran, while the United States had previously said it wanted to treat this dossier separately.\n\nLebanon faces "a crucial test", President Joseph Aoun said on Saturday on X, calling on Lebanese to unite "around a sovereign state that holds the monopoly on weapons" so as not to remain "hostage to the logic of militias".\n\nHezbollah MP Ali Fayyad called for taking advantage of any agreement aimed at ending hostilities but for him "the state must abandon the policy of being crushed before the Israelis and submissive to the Americans".\n\nlg/sno/san/