Today, Saturday, Israeli warplanes raided the town of Deir Al-Zahrani in Nabatieh District, resulting, according to a preliminary toll, in the death of three people and the wounding of a number of citizens, in a renewal of Israeli raids hours after a widespread escalation in Nabatieh Governorate since dawn today.
Preliminary information is still coming from the targeting site, while the nature of the site targeted by the raid or the final toll is not yet clear, amid anticipation that the number of victims may increase with the continuation of ambulance operations and field follow-up.
The raid on Deir Al-Zahrani came a few hours after one of the most violent waves of Israeli escalation that the Nabatieh region witnessed recently, as the town of Ansar was subjected to an Israeli raid at dawn that targeted a house on the outskirts of the town.
The Ministry of Public Health later announced that the final toll of the Deir Al-Zahrani raid amounted to two martyrs and 9 wounded, while in Ansar, it amounted to 7 martyrs, including 3 children and 2 women, making it the bloodiest targeting during the wave of raids that the south witnessed since the dawn hours.
The targeting of Ansar came as part of a wide series of air strikes that began after 3:00 in the morning, and intensively affected the Ali Al-Taher and Nabatieh Al-Fawqa heights, coinciding with continuous flights of Israeli warplanes over the area.
Ali Al-Taher Heights was targeted by a series of successive raids, while Nabatieh Al-Fawqa was subjected to other raids, before one of the raids hit a house and a chalet on the outskirts of Ansar, after which search and rescue operations began, which ended with the announcement of the final toll of victims.
The escalation was not limited to air strikes, as the area witnessed sweeping operations with machine guns and artillery shelling on a number of axes, in conjunction with intense overflights of military aircraft and helicopters, which sparked a state of fear among the population and led to a recorded displacement movement from the Nabatieh area.
Following the dawn raids, the Israeli army announced that it had targeted what it described as “Hezbollah infrastructure” in the Nabatieh and Ansar areas, claiming that the operations were in response to activity against its forces in the Ali al-Taher Heights area.
However, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam responded to the escalation, stressing that the martyrs of the Ansar 7 raid, including children and women, “are not military infrastructure,” and stressed that the responsibility for dealing with any military structures, if they exist on Lebanese territory, falls exclusively on the Lebanese state through the army and legitimate institutions.
Salam warned that the escalation affecting Nabatieh, Ansar, Deir Al-Zahrani and neighboring villages is “extremely dangerous,” considering that it undermines efforts to stabilize the south, and called on Israel to stop the escalation.
The targeting of Deir Al-Zahrani gains additional field significance, as it means the wave of raids moved from the targets that were concentrated at dawn in Ansar, Nabatieh Al-Fawqa, and Ali Al-Taher Heights to a new point in the Nabatieh district, which expands the geographical scope of the escalation within a few hours.
Between the bloody Ansar al-Damiyah toll and the new initial toll in Deir al-Zahrani, the south remains under the weight of a very tense day, amid fears of continued raids and an expansion in the scope of targeting, while the region awaits an update on the final toll of the latest raid.
