By Steven Scheer and Nazih Osseiran
JERUSALEM/BEIRUT, May 31 (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered troops to move further into Lebanon in the battle against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group, he said on Sunday, despite a ceasefire announced more than six weeks ago.
The fighting in Lebanon has been the broadest spillover of the Iran war, displacing more than 1.2 million Lebanese through Israeli strikes and evacuation orders since March 2, when Hezbollah began firing rockets and drones into Israel to back its ally Iran.
The incursion has so far killed more than 3,370 people, according to the Lebanese government. Israel says 24 of its soldiers and four civilians have been killed over the same period. Tens of thousands of Israelis in the country’s north have also been displaced by Hezbollah rockets and drones.
In the latest advance, Israeli troops seized the 900-year-old Beaufort Castle and a strategic ridge in southern Lebanon, the military said, a day after one of the heaviest days of Hezbollah fire toward northern Israel since the April ceasefire, prompting school closures and restrictions.
“I instructed the (military) to expand its ground manoeuvre in Lebanon,” Netanyahu said in a statement.
Citing the escalating violence in Lebanon, France called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Monday, its foreign ministry said in a statement.
ISRAEL AIMS TO EXPAND GRIP ON HEZBOLLAH AREAS
Israeli troops and Hezbollah have continued to trade fire since the mid-April ceasefire, with Hezbollah resorting to the use of cheap, easy-to-assemble kamikaze drones that are hard for air defences to thwart and that have killed several Israeli troops in southern Lebanon.
The Israeli military already controlled territory up to the Litani River in Lebanon, but troops are pushing to the Zaharani River, around 10 km north.
Netanyahu said his aim is to “deepen and expand our grip on the places that were under Hezbollah’s control”.
Naftali Bennett, a challenger to Netanyahu in an upcoming election, said he seeks stronger action in Lebanon, including hitting suburbs of Beirut.
The military on Sunday issued an evacuation warning for residents south of the Zaharani. Eight people were killed when overnight airstrikes Saturday hit the southern village of Deir El Zahrani, Lebanon’s state news agency said.
Throughout Sunday, the Israeli military conducted more than 40 strikes across southern Lebanon, according to Lebanese security sources and state news.
BEAUFORT CASTLE GIVES VANTAGE POINT
On Friday, the U.S. military had hosted Israeli and Lebanese defence representatives in Washington to pursue a U.S.-brokered plan to forge peace between the two countries and disarm Iranian-backed Hezbollah. On May 15, the two sides agreed to extend the ceasefire by 45 days.
The advance into Beaufort Castle has granted Israeli troops a vantage point over much of southern Lebanon and northern Israel, from which attacks have been launched towards Israeli residential areas.
It was the first time Israel had held the site since May 2000, when Israel withdrew its troops from southern Lebanon after 18 years.
Defence Minister Israel Katz said soldiers will retain Beaufort as part of Israel’s security zone in southern Lebanon.
“The campaign is not over yet,” he said. “We are all determined to crush Hezbollah’s power.”
Katz circulated a photo on social media of the castle with the Israeli flag and also that of the military’s Golani brigade.
The latest operation, the military said, was focused on establishing control of the Beaufort Ridge and the Wadi al-Saluki area, while degrading the capabilities of Hezbollah’s militants and its infrastructure on the ridge established under Iranian direction.
One Israeli soldier was killed, the military said.
There were no immediate comments from Lebanon or from Hezbollah.
Talal Atrissi, a sociology professor at the Lebanese University and an analyst who is close to Hezbollah, said the photo of the Israeli flag over the castle was intended as a message to Israeli society that the military was managing to achieve goals in Lebanon despite the challenges posed by Hezbollah’s use of drones.
Israeli troops were also operating near Nabatieh, a major Hezbollah stronghold in southern Lebanon, the military said.
(Reporting by Steven Scheer, Nazih Osseiran, Maya Gebeily and Tala Ramadan; Editing by Bernadette Baum, David Holmes and Barbara Lewis)
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