_updates.jpg)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the country's military to expand invasions of southern Lebanon amid escalating tensions.
In a video statement on Sunday, March 29, the prime minister said, "I have just instructed to further expand the existing security buffer zone. We are determined to fundamentally change the situation in the north [of Israel]."
The comment came as Israeli forces move towards the Litani River in an effort to drive out Hezbollah, which entered the Iran war in March with retaliatory attacks on Israel following the killing of Iran's former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
As reported by Al Jazeera, the latest move could turn into "a big fight" as Israeli troops have reached just a few hundred metres "away from the actual Litani River".
According to Lebanon's Health Ministry, at least 1,238 people have been killed since Lebanon got involved in the war on March 2.
The huge number also includes 124 children, while over 3,500 people have been wounded.
Over the weekend, 49 people were killed, including 10 rescue workers and three journalists.
Hundreds of mourners gathered on Sunday in Choueifat for the journalists funerals, who were killed by an Israeli air strike while covering the war.
A journalists' vehicle was attacked in the town of Jezzine, killing Ali Shoeib, a veteran correspondent for Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV, Fatiman Ftouni of the pro-Hezbollah Al Mayadeen channel and her brother, cameraman Mohammad Ftouni.
