In the latest unprecedented step by Lebanese authorities since a new war erupted between Israel and Hezbollah, Beirut's foreign ministry declared the Iranian ambassador persona non grata, giving him until Sunday to leave the country.

Hezbollah strongly objected to the move, calling on the government to reverse it.

Lebanon was pulled into the Middle East war when the Tehran-backed Hezbollah militant group began firing rockets into Israel on March 2 to avenge the killing of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Israel has since launched strikes across Lebanon, killing at least 1,072 people and displacing more than a million others in more than three weeks of fighting. It has also sent ground troops into the country's south.

Israel kept up strikes across Lebanon on Tuesday, with the state-run National News Agency (NNA) reporting attacks in the country's south and east, as well as near Beirut, after a night of bombardment on the capital's southern suburbs.

The Israeli military said that overnight its forces "struck Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure in Beirut and in additional areas in Lebanon".

- 'Nothing left' -

In Bshamoun, a mixed town in the Aley region southeast of Beirut, outside of Hezbollah's traditional strongholds, AFP correspondents saw damage to an apartment building hit by an Israeli strike.

Lebanon's health ministry said three people were killed including a three-year-old girl, and reported five others killed in Israeli strikes in south Lebanon.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said the military "will control... the security zone up to the Litani", adding that displaced Lebanese residents would not return south of the river "until security is guaranteed for the residents of the north" of Israel.

The area south of the Litani has experienced extensive destruction since hostilities erupted between Israel and Hezbollah in 2023 in the wake of the Gaza war, and despite a November 2024 ceasefire.

Many border villages were largely empty of residents even before the Israeli military resumed heavy bombardment and incursions into the area since the latest war erupted more than three weeks ago.

Explosions were also heard in predominantly Christian areas north of Beirut, so far spared from the war, in what was believed to be the interception of an Iranian missile by a warship at sea, according to a Lebanese security official.

Multiple foreign powers, among them the United States, have vessels stationed in the eastern Mediterranean in response to the war.

The Israeli military, in a statement, said its assessment was that it was an Iranian missile that "fell in Beirut".

- 'Violation of diplomatic norms' -

Israel has repeatedly issued sweeping orders for residents to evacuate southern Lebanon, an area covering hundreds of square miles (kilometres), while Hezbollah has reported regular attacks on Israeli troops there, including in the strategic border town of Khiam in recent days, and in the village of Qawzah on Tuesday.

Katz said Israel's military was "following the model of Rafah and Beit Hanoun", two Gazan cities that were effectively razed to the ground during more than two years of war with Hamas, and which remain under Israeli military control.

Lebanon's foreign ministry said it had summoned the Iranian charge d'affaires in Lebanon over "Tehran's violation of diplomatic norms" and said Beirut had withdrawn approval "of the accreditation of the appointed Iranian ambassador".

The ministry later clarified that its decision does not constitute a severing of diplomatic relations with Iran, but rather "a measure against the ambassador for violating diplomatic protocol and his obligations as an appointed ambassador to Lebanon".

On Sunday, Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards were commanding Hezbollah's operations in the war against Israel, and authorities this month banned the Guards' activities in the country.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar welcomed Lebanon's decision to expel the envoy as a "justified and necessary step" and urged the government to take steps against Hezbollah.

Israel has said it has struck Guards operatives in Lebanon in recent weeks, including on Monday.

On Tuesday, it said it had killed a member of the Quds Force overseas branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Mohammed Ali Kurani, in a strike near Beirut the day before.

A Lebanese security source told AFP that Kurani was from Lebanon and a security officer in Hezbollah.

bur-nad-lg-ris/dcp

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