Several mayors of municipal councils from several border villages in southern Lebanon have stated that they have received calls from the Israeli army, asking them to force displaced people who have fled neighboring mostly Shiite localities to leave the area.
Since the beginning of the war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon on March 2, more than a million people have been displaced due to Israeli evacuation orders, targeting mainly the strongholds of the Islamist movement in southern Lebanon and in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
“The Israeli army contacted me on Sunday, asking me to clear the village within 24 hours,” said the mayor of Kawkaba municipal council, a village in the Hasbaya region, in a telephone interview with AFP on Monday.
According to him, 21 displaced families will have to leave his village on Monday.
“I had no other choice,” the mayor said, “but to ask them to leave in order to prevent Israel from targeting them, while protecting the residents of my village from danger.”
The mayor stated that he had been contacted several times by the Israeli army last week, which asked him to provide the names of the displaced people in his locality.
“I refused to disclose the names, to avoid violating Lebanese laws, and I emphasized that they were innocent civilians, in an effort to keep them with us,” he added.
A similar scenario occurred in the neighboring village of Abou Qamha, in the same region, where the President of the Municipal Council, Michel Abou Rachid, recounted receiving a call from the Israeli army on Sunday, asking for the names of the displaced persons in the area.
Like his neighbor, he stated that he did not respond to this request.
Several other villages in the region have indicated that they have been asked to request displaced people to leave, following similar Israeli warnings.
The Hasbaya region includes several localities predominantly Druze, Christian, or Sunni, adjacent to the Marjayoun region, where the Israeli army began its ground incursion.
The municipality of a village in Hasbaya, al-Mari, announced in a statement that it is determined to follow “these coercive directives,” and expressed regret for the decision that was “imposed” on them to ask the displaced people to leave.
Furthermore, the Israeli army has asked the municipalities of these villages, which are not affiliated with Hezbollah, to have their residents stay at home and refrain from going out near the villages.
