(In paragraph five, corrects to remove reference to Israelis being displaced by Hezbollah fire)
JEURSALEM, June 1 (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday ordered the military to attack targets in the Lebanese capital Beirut’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold known as Dahiyeh.
“Following repeated violations of the ceasefire in Lebanon by the terrorist group Hezbollah and the attacks against our cities and citizens, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz ordered the IDF to attack terrorist targets in the Dahiyeh district in Beirut,” a statement from Netanyahu’s office said.
Israeli troops and Hezbollah have continued to trade fire since a mid-April ceasefire, with Hezbollah resorting to the use of cheap, easy-to-assemble kamikaze drones that are hard for air defences to thwart and that have killed several Israeli troops in southern Lebanon.
The fighting in Lebanon has been the broadest spillover of the Iran war, displacing more than 1.2 million Lebanese through Israeli strikes and evacuation orders since March 2, when Hezbollah began firing rockets and drones into Israel to back its ally Iran.
The incursion has so far killed more than 3,370 people, according to the Lebanese government. Israel says 24 of its soldiers and four civilians have been killed over the same period.
(Reporting by Rami Ayyub, writing by Menna Alaa El-Din; Editing by Sharon Singleton)
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