Israeli army threatens to attack ambulances in southern Lebanon

After hitting UN peacekeepers, military claims Hezbollah is using ambulances for fighters while offering no evidence.

The Israeli army has threatened to hit ambulances in southern Lebanon, claiming they are being misused by Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, and also ordered more villages to evacuate.

The warning came after Israeli forces hit positions of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), injuring peacekeepers.

Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee on Saturday alleged that “Hezbollah elements are using ambulances to transport fighters and arms.” He did not provide any proof of his accusation.

“We call on medical teams to avoid contact with Hezbollah members and not to cooperate with them,” he said. The Israeli military “affirms that the necessary actions will be taken against any vehicle transporting armed individuals, regardless of its type”.

Adraee also warned residents of southern Lebanon not to go back to their homes as Israeli troops continued fighting Hezbollah fighters in the area.

“For your own protection, do not return to your homes until further notice. Do not go south, anyone who goes south may put his life at risk,” he said.

The Israeli military also ordered residents of 22 southern Lebanese villages to evacuate to areas north of the Awali River, according to a statement released on Saturday.

Fighting ongoing

Israeli air attacks continue to intensify across Lebanon, while Hezbollah has responded by launching rockets at Israel.

Since September 23, when Israel expanded its conflict against Hezbollah by bombarding southern Beirut and other strongholds of the group with deadly air strikes, more than 1,200 people have been killed in Lebanon.

An Israeli air raid on Baysarieh, a village in Sidon province, killed three people, including a 2-year-old and a 16-year-old, and injured three others, Lebanon’s Ministry of Health said.

In Baalbeck-Hermel province, located in the Bekaa Valley, five more people were killed and five wounded in additional air attacks.

“It has been an intense night of bombing at many locations in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon as was the case yesterday,” said Al Jazeera’s Assed Baig, reporting from Chtoura. “What we have been witnessing is Israeli attacks on residential buildings.”

Hezbollah said it used “qualitative missiles” to hit an Israeli military base making weapons south of Haifa, in its seventh attack on Israeli positions on Saturday.

The group said the attack occurred at 6am (03:00 GMT) and included artillery fire targeting Israeli soldiers near the Lebanon border, the launch of a “guided missile” at the Ramyah site, and multiple rocket barrages aimed at Israeli positions.

Iran parliament speaker in Beirut

The speaker of Iran’s parliament and former military commander, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, was visiting the Lebanese capital to meet his counterpart and Amal Movement leader Nabih Berri.

“I’m here to send a message from the people, supreme leader and the president of Iran to the people of Lebanon that, as always, we stand with the Lebanese people, government and resistance, and will stay by their stand in difficult conditions,” he told Iranian state television after arriving in Beirut.

Ghalibaf visited the site of an Israeli attack on the densely populated Basta area that killed at least 22 people, accompanied by two Hezbollah legislators, according to the AFP news agency.

He is next heading to Geneva to take part in an assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, where he said he will discuss a shared “duty” to help besieged Palestinians and Lebanese people with his counterparts.