BEIRUT/OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: Israel’s military told residents of more than 20 towns in south Lebanon to evacuate their homes immediately on Thursday as it pressed on with its cross-border incursion and struck Hezbollah targets in a suburb of Beirut.

The latest warnings took the number of southern towns subject to evacuation calls to 70 and included the provincial capital Nabatieh, suggesting another Israeli military operation was imminent against the Iran-backed armed group.

Hezbollah also carried out new strikes, targeting what it called Israel’s “Sakhnin base” for military industries in Haifa Bay on the Mediterranean coast of northern Israel with a salvo of rockets.

Israel, which has been fighting Hamas in the Palestinian territory of Gaza for almost a year, sent troops into southern Lebanon on Tuesday after two weeks of intense airstrikes in a worsening conflict that has drawn in Iran and risks sucking in the United States.

Israel says the aim of its operations in Lebanon is to allow tens of thousands of its citizens displaced from northern Israel by Hezbollah bombardments during the Gaza war to return home safely.

More than 1.2 million Lebanese have been displaced by Israeli attacks, and nearly 2,000 people have been killed since the start of the Israeli attacks on Lebanon over the last year, most of them in the past two weeks, Lebanese authorities said.

The World Health Organization said 28 healthcare workers had been killed in Lebanon in the previous 24 hours. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also said flight restrictions meant the agency would not be able to deliver a large planned shipment of trauma and medical supplies to Lebanon on Friday.

Hezbollah says it has repelled several land operations by Israeli troops, including with ambushes and in direct clashes.