Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has instructed his nation’s army to additional broaden invasions of southern Lebanon, as regional tensions spike amid the United States-Israeli war on Iran.
“I’ve simply instructed to additional broaden the present safety buffer zone. We’re decided to essentially change the scenario within the north [of Israel],” Netanyahu mentioned in a video assertion from the Northern Command on Sunday, pushing ahead his nation’s acknowledged bid to duplicate the “Gaza mannequin” of occupation.
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Netanyahu’s announcement got here as Israeli forces superior in a number of areas of southern Lebanon in a concerted push in direction of the Litani River in a bid to drive out Hezbollah, which entered the broader Iran conflict in early March with retaliatory assaults on Israel after the killing of Iran’s former Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Reporting from Tyre in southern Lebanon, Al Jazeera’s Obaida Hitto mentioned that preventing between Hezbollah and Israel had “intensified” over latest hours. He mentioned Israeli troops had reached a tributary of the Litani River south of the city of Qantara, on the japanese entrance close to al-Muhaysibat.
Hitto described the event as a “large strategic change”.
“This tributary that they’ve reached south of Qantara is only a few kilometres, and in some locations, only a few hundred metres away from the precise Litani River,” he mentioned. “So that is going to show into an enormous combat, primarily based on what we’re listening to from Hezbollah.”
A minimum of 1,238 individuals have been killed since Lebanon was dragged into the conflict on March 2, in line with Lebanon’s Well being Ministry.
The toll contains 124 kids, whereas greater than 3,500 individuals have been wounded, the ministry mentioned in a press release. On Saturday and Sunday alone, 49 individuals had been killed, it mentioned, together with 10 rescue employees and three journalists.
Reporting from Beirut, Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr mentioned there was “no let-up in Israeli strikes”.
The United Nations says that greater than 1.2 million individuals have been displaced.
Funeral held for 3 journalists
Lots of of mourners gathered Sunday in Choueifat, south of Beirut, for the funerals of three journalists killed by an Israeli air strike whereas protecting the conflict, an assault denounced by Lebanon as a “blatant crime”.
Saturday’s assault on the journalists’ car within the city of Jezzine killed Ali Shoeib, a veteran correspondent for Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV, Fatiman Ftouni of the pro-Hezbollah Al Mayadeen channel and her brother, cameraman Mohammad Ftouni.
Israel’s army mentioned in a press release that it had killed Shoeib in a focused strike. Labelling him a “terrorist”, it claimed with out proof that he was a Hezbollah intelligence operative and accused him of reporting on areas of Israeli troopers in Lebanon.
The army didn’t touch upon the killing of Ftouni and her brother.
Below intermittent rain, the three had been buried in a short lived graveyard – a standard follow in instances of conflict for individuals who can’t be buried of their hometowns.
“Fatima and Ali had been heroes,” a relative of Ftouni’s who gave solely his first title as Qassem informed information company AFP.
Al Jazeera’s Hitto mentioned there was a temper of “grief, but additionally defiance” in southern Lebanon. “As individuals mourn these journalists, the message from members of the media is evident: they won’t be intimidated; they are going to report nonstop,” he mentioned.
French Overseas Minister Jean-Noel Barrot informed public broadcaster France 3 on Sunday that journalists working in conflict zones “mustn’t ever be focused”, together with after they “have hyperlinks with events to the battle”.
“Whether it is certainly confirmed that the journalists in query had been intentionally focused by the Israeli military, then that is extraordinarily severe and a blatant violation of worldwide regulation,” Barrot mentioned.
The Committee to Defend Journalists (CPJ) has documented at the very least 11 Israeli killings of Lebanese journalists and press employees because the begin of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah in 2023, which had been supposedly delivered to an finish by a November 2024 ceasefire that Israel has repeatedly violated.
Within the Gaza Strip, the place Israel fought a conflict in opposition to the Palestinian armed group Hamas from October 2023 till an October 2025 ceasefire that has additionally been repeatedly breached, 210 Palestinian journalists and media employees have been killed by the Israeli army, the CPJ mentioned.
