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Israeli attacks displace around 100,000 people in southern Lebanon

Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdullah Bou Habib says the hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians are in "dire need of care and assistance" during a meeting with ICRC President Mirjana Spoljaric.

AFP

Children are among the hundreds of thousands who fled their villages near the border with Israel in southern Lebanon after Hezbollah and Israel began exchanging fire in October. / Photo: AFP

Around 100,000 people have been displaced by Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon, according to the country’s foreign minister.

"We have about 100,000 displaced people from the south as a result of recent events and Israeli attacks,” Abdullah Bou Habib said on Monday during a meeting with President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC ) Mirjana Spoljaric.

“They are in dire need of care and assistance,” he added.

Bou Habib said Lebanon welcomes all possible assistance from the ICRC to the displaced Lebanese.

Also on Monday, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said "time is running out" to reach a diplomatic solution in south Lebanon with daily cross-border fire.

"Israel will act militarily to return the evacuated citizens" to its northern border area if no diplomatic solution is reached to end the violence, Katz told his visiting French counterpart Stephane Sejourne, according to a statement issued by the Israeli foreign ministry.

Tension has escalated along the border between Lebanon and Israel amid intermittent exchange of fire between Israeli forces and Hezbollah since early October, in the deadliest clashes since the two sides fought a full-scale war in 2006.

At least 30 civilians, including three journalists and three children, and 182 Hezbollah members have since been killed in southern Lebanon, according to local media.

The border tension comes amid an Israeli military offensive in Gaza since October 7 that has since killed at least 27,365 people and injured 66,630 others.