Israel Drops Leaflets Ordering Residents To Flee Southern Lebanon

IDF insists drop was unauthorized, no evacuation order exists

Reports out of the southern Lebanese village of al-Wazzani are that Israeli forces dropped leaflets over the area ordering civilians to evacuate from the area into the north of Lebanon and to stay there for the duration of the war.

There appears to be some controversy surrounding the matter, however, as the IDF reported that the brigade which dropped the leaflets wasn’t authorized to do so, and that there is no evacuation order that exists right now for people in southern Lebanon.

Images of the leaflets were making the rounds on social media, and they said in Arabic that anyone who was still south of the city of Khiam after 4:00 PM would be considered a terrorist and subject to attack. Israel carries out near daily attacks on southern Lebanon.

Al-Wazzani is an agricultural center in southern Lebanon. The Israeli military says that the leaflets were dropped by a drone in the area without authorization and that they are carrying out an investigation into the matter.

Over the weekend Hezbollah fired some 60 rockets against northern Israel in retaliation to deadly attacks last week. The Israeli military responded with strikes against what they claimed were Hezbollah targets in northeastern Lebanon.

The international community has been trying to broker talks to get tensions calmed at the Israel-Lebanon border. The talks have mostly not been successful, and Hezbollah has made them contingent on an end to the 11 month long Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.