Israel orders Arab Salim residents out after saying Hezbollah flew two drones at troops

The Israeli military on Sunday told residents of Arab Salim, in the Nabatieh district of south Lebanon, to leave marked buildings and stay at least 300 metres away. The order followed an army statement that Hezbollah had flown two explosive drones at soldiers inside the zone Israel now calls a security belt. Troops fired on one drone and brought it down, the statement said. No Israeli wounded were reported.

Avichay Adraee, the army's Arabic-language spokesperson, posted a map with the target blocks in red. L'Orient-Le Jour said it was the first warning of this type since mid-June and that it went out just after 6 a.m., after the drone claim. Hurriyet Daily News, citing the same military note, said strikes in the south were already under way as the warning was issued.

Arab Salim sits north of the belt Defence Minister Israel Katz described on Saturday as complete once troops took the Ali al-Taher ridge, about 10 kilometres from the boundary and above a Hezbollah underground complex near Nabatieh. Hezbollah called that ridge's value overstated. The new warning pushes the air campaign onto a town outside the line Israel says it holds.

Since 15 August the army has repeatedly accused Hezbollah of drone flights that the party has not claimed. Each accusation has been followed by raids on villages beyond the belt. Raids on Deir Zahrani and Ansar on 15 August killed 11 people. A later strike on Arab Salim killed a young woman. Overnight from Friday to Saturday, raids on southern villages and the Bekaa killed four, L'Orient-Le Jour reported.

Field notes on Sunday spoke of more than 25 sorties across the south in a few hours. Those figures come from Lebanese reporters and are not matched, hour by hour, in the Israeli statement. What the statement does match is the pattern: a drone claim, a map, a 300-metre ring, then bombs on a building the army says is a Hezbollah site.

The November 2024 ceasefire, such as it still exists on paper, told Hezbollah to pull heavy arms north of the Litani and told Israel to step back from the positions it took in the autumn war. Neither side describes the present map as that deal. Katz has said troops will stay until Hezbollah is disarmed. Hezbollah has said it will keep resisting occupation of Lebanese ground.

For families in Arab Salim the instruction is simpler and worse. Leave a marked house before the next pass. The 300-metre ring is not a shelter plan. It is a blast-distance note. People who cannot walk that far in the time between a Telegram map and a jet are the ones the warning does not cover.

Sunday's order also tests the claim that the Ali al-Taher ridge closed the zone. If the army still needs to empty a town north of that ridge, the zone is not a finished line. It is a line that moves when a drone is said to have crossed it.