Today, Friday, Israel began activating a plan to evacuate the Kiryat Shmona settlement near the border with southern Lebanon of its residents, against the backdrop of the military escalation with the Lebanese Hezbollah.
The Israeli army said – in a statement – that the emergency authority of the Ministry of Defense announces the evacuation of residents of the Kiryat Shmona settlement to state-funded guest houses.
The statement added, “The plan was approved to be activated by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and the Home Front Command informed the mayor of the decision on Friday morning.”
On October 16, Israel decided to evacuate 28 settlements located near the Lebanese border. Yesterday, Thursday, the Kiryat Shmona settlement (population exceeding 24,000) was added to the towns scheduled to be evacuated.
For about two weeks, the Israeli-Lebanese border has witnessed tension and intermittent exchange of fire between Hezbollah and Palestinian factions on the one hand and Israel on the other, resulting in deaths and injuries on both sides.
The escalation in southern Lebanon comes after the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation, which was initiated by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and the Palestinian factions on October 7 in response to the Israeli violations against Al-Aqsa Mosque, amid international warnings of the expansion of confrontations to the Lebanese-Israeli front in light of the deployment of… Hezbollah in the border areas.
It is worth noting that Hezbollah and Israel fought a devastating war in the summer of 2006, which left more than 1,200 martyrs on the Lebanese side, most of them civilians, and 160 dead on the Israeli side, most of them military. The war – which lasted 34 days – caused the displacement of about one million Lebanese from their towns.
2023-10-20 10:03:48
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