Israeli ground troops pushed beyond the Israel-declared "Yellow Line" six miles inside Lebanese territory on Wednesday and the air force struck more than 150 sites it tied to Hezbollah, expanding a campaign that Lebanese officials said killed at least 31 people the previous day and prompted a forced evacuation of the entire city of Nabatieh.
The escalation widens a second front that has run alongside the U.S.-Iran war since March and that Washington's emerging peace framework with Tehran does not address. Lebanon's health ministry says 3,213 people have been killed and 9,737 wounded in the country since fighting resumed, a toll that has continued to climb through two ceasefires.
What expanded
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said late Tuesday that a large Israeli ground force was pushing deep into southern Lebanon to seize territory and to "fortify" what he called a "security zone" inside the neighboring country, according to Al Jazeera. An Israeli military official told Agence France-Presse that troops had begun operating beyond the Yellow Line, the demarcation Israel set six miles inside Lebanon.
The Israel Defense Forces said Wednesday it had struck "more than 150 Hezbollah infrastructure sites and terrorists" over the prior day, concentrated in and around Tyre, Nabatieh and the Beqaa Valley. Over roughly 10 hours Tuesday, the military issued forced displacement orders for dozens of towns and villages and for all of Nabatieh, a city of about 25,000, directing residents to move north of the Zahrani River some 25 miles from the Israeli border.
The casualties
Lebanon's Ministry of Public Health said Tuesday's attacks killed 31 people, including at least four children and three women, and wounded 40. Fourteen died in Burj al-Shamali near Tyre, five in Kawthariyat al-Riz, four in Habbush, six in Maarakeh and two in Salaa. A second Israeli air attack Wednesday killed two people in Deir Amas in the Tyre district and destroyed two homes in Braiqaa, Lebanese state media reported, as residents marked Eid al-Adha.
Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said one strike hit the vicinity of a public hospital, causing "significant damage to the hospital's departments." Hezbollah claimed responsibility for 32 operations Tuesday, saying its fighters engaged Israeli armor around Zawtar al-Sharqiya and downed two quadcopters.
Israel's rationale
IDF spokesman Avichay Adraee, in the evacuation order for Nabatieh, said the military was "forced to act against it with force" because of "the terrorist Hezbollah's violation of the ceasefire agreement," language he has repeated in daily warnings to Lebanese towns. He warned that "anyone who is present near Hezbollah members, its facilities, and its combat means is putting their life in danger." Israeli officials have framed the ground push as fortification of the buffer zone established under the November 2024 truce, which a follow-on ceasefire in April failed to durably restore.
The expansion runs in parallel to talks in which President Trump has said he is closing in on a settlement with Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz; Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday those negotiations need "several more days." The Lebanon track is not on that agenda.
Available accounts of Wednesday's fighting came from CBS News and Al Jazeera. Israeli officials had not detailed the scope or duration of the ground advance beyond the prime minister's statement by press time.