GENEVA: Israel, which began incursions into south Lebanon two weeks ago to battle Iran-backed militant group Hizbollah, has issued military evacuation orders affecting more than a quarter of the country, the U.N. refugee agency said on Tuesday.
The figures underscore the heavy price Lebanese are paying as Israel steps up its campaign to defeat Hizbollah and destroy its infrastructure in their one-year conflict.
The UN refugee agency's Middle East Director Rema Jamous Imseis told a press briefing in Geneva that new Israeli evacuation orders to 20 villages in southern Lebanon meant that over a quarter of the country was now affected.
"People are heeding these calls to evacuate, and they're fleeing with almost nothing."
Israeli strikes have killed at least 2,309 people over the last year, the Lebanese government said, and more than 1.2 million people have been displaced.
The majority have been killed since late September when Israel expanded its military campaign. The toll does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Around 50 Israelis, both soldiers and civilians, have been killed, according to Israel.
Israel says its operation in Lebanon aims to secure the return of tens of thousands of its residents forced to flee their homes in northern Israel due to Hizbollah attacks.
Israel expanded its bombing campaign in Lebanon on Monday, killing at least 22 people - most of them women - in an airstrike in the north on a house where displaced people were seeking refuge from Israeli strikes further south, health officials said.
"What we are hearing is that amongst the 22 people killed were 12 women and two children," U.N. human rights office spokesperson Jeremy Laurence told the same press briefing in response to a question about Monday's strike on Christian-majority Aitou.
"We understand it was a four-story residential building that was struck. With these factors in mind, we have real concerns with respect to IHL (International Humanitarian Law), so the laws of war, and the principles of distinction proportion and proportionality," he said, calling for an investigation into the incident.
Rescue workers were still pulling bodies out of the rubble in Aitou on Tuesday, local media reported, following one of the deadliest strikes on displaced families in Lebanon, after strikes earlier this month on the southern Lebanese town of Ain Deleb that left more than 30 dead.
Israel has not commented on the Aitou strike, but has repeatedly said it takes all possible precautions to avoid civilian casualties.
&uuid=(email))