The Albany Gazette - Lebanon says Israeli strikes kill three soldiers

Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East war on March 2 when pro-Iran Hezbollah launched rockets towards Israel in response to US-Israeli strikes that killed Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Israel has responded with intense strikes in multiple Lebanese regions and ground operations in the south, with its finance minister saying this month that Beirut's suburbs would soon "resemble" the badly damaged Gazan city of Khan Yunis.

From Geneva, the UN rights office said Tuesday that threats by Israeli officials "to impose the same level of destruction on Lebanon as inflicted in Gaza are wholly unacceptable".

In the southern city of Sidon, far from the border, displaced people were sleeping in their cars parked along the seafront corniche, according to an AFP team there.

The city "is full, we have no more capacity", said Jihan Kaisi, the director of an NGO that runs a school-turned-shelter, where more than 1,100 people are crammed together.

"Lots of people are coming every day to ask for shelter but we don't have space anymore, we can't accept them," she said, adding that the road from the south was blocked on Monday with people fleeing north following evacuation warnings.

- 'Blatant' contradiction -

Israel's military on Tuesday renewed its call for residents to evacuate a region stretching more than 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the Lebanon-Israel border.

The Lebanese military said three of its soldiers were killed in two Israeli air strikes in the south, while the Israeli army said its operations were not directed "against the Lebanese army".

Lebanon's army has tried to stay out of the war, but three of its soldiers were killed by Israeli shelling earlier this month during a failed Israeli commando operation in eastern Lebanon.

President Joseph Aoun said in a statement that targeting the army "blatantly contradicts" calls from Lebanon and the international community for the military to extend state control across the country and disarm Hezbollah.

The Iran-backed militant group announced a series of attacks Tuesday, including several on Israeli troops near the border inside south Lebanon.

Israel struck near Beirut's airport in the city's southern suburbs on Tuesday, killing one person, the health ministry said.

The Lebanese civil aviation authority said the airport continued to operate normally and that the road leading to it remained passable.

State media reported several other Israel strikes on Beirut's southern suburbs, as well as in Doha Aramoun, south of the capital, where an Ethiopian woman was wounded.

- Israeli troops -

Israel's army said it struck Hezbollah targets "across Lebanon, including weapon storage facilities, launchers and launching sites, terrorists, and structures belonging to the organisation", a day after announcing "limited" ground operations were underway.

Israeli strikes have killed 912 people, including 111 children, since March 2, Lebanon's health ministry said.

Israel's military chief of staff Eyal Zamir said on Monday that "more than 400 terrorists have been eliminated so far".

Around 14 percent of Lebanese territory is under Israeli evacuation warnings, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council.

Lebanese authorities said more than one million people had registered as displaced since March 2 -- more than a sixth of the country's population -- with more than 130,000 staying in official shelters.

These displaced people "will not return to their homes" in the south as long as the security of residents in northern Israel is not guaranteed, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz has said.

Alongside its massive bombardment campaign, Israel has said it is carrying out ground incursions in the south.

On Tuesday, the Israeli military said additional troops "have been deployed in Lebanon... to remove threats and create an additional layer of security for residents of northern Israel against Hezbollah's threat".

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(R.White--TAG)