By Emma Farge, Clauda Tanios and Timour Azhari
GENEVA/DUBAI/BEIRUT, (Reuters) -Israel has issued military evacuation orders affecting more than a quarter of Lebanon, the U.N. refugee agency said on Tuesday, two weeks after the Israeli military began incursions into south Lebanon to battle Hezbollah.
The figures underscore the heavy price Lebanese are paying as Israel tries to defeat the Iran-backed militant group and destroy its infrastructure in their one-year-old conflict.
The U.N. refugee agency's Middle East director, Rema Jamous Imseis, said 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," she told a briefing in Geneva.
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 residents forced to flee their homes in northern Israel because of Hezbollah attacks.
Israel expanded its bombing campaign in Lebanon on Monday, killing at least 22 people 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 said of Monday's strike on Christian-majority Aitou.
He called for an investigation about a strike which he said has raised concerns with respect to "the laws of war".
Rescue workers were still pulling bodies out of the rubble in Aitou on Tuesday, local media reported. Israel has not commented on the Aitou strike, but says it takes all possible precautions to avoid civilian casualties.
CONCERN AT ATTACKS ON PEACEKEEPERS
The main focus of Israel's military operations in Lebanon has been in the Bekaa Valley in the east, the suburbs of Beirut and in the south, where U.N. peacekeepers say Israeli fire has hit their bases on numerous occasions and wounded peacekeepers.
Israel's military said about 20 projectiles crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory after sirens sounded in the Haifa Bay and Upper Galilee areas, and that some were intercepted.
The mass displacement in Lebanon during Israel's military campaign has revived the spectre of sectarian strife.
Lebanon's population consists of more than a dozen religious sects, with political representation divided along sectarian lines. Religious divisions fuelled the ferocity of a 1975-1990 civil war that killed some 150,000 people and drew in neighbouring states.
The U.S. has stood by Israel in its conflicts despite concerns over civilian casualties. The Pentagon said components for an advanced anti-missile system began arriving in Israel on Monday and that it would be fully operational in the near future, according to a statement on Tuesday.
The U.N. Security Council on Monday expressed strong concern after several peacekeeping positions in southern Lebanon again came under fire.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would continue to attack Hezbollah "without mercy, everywhere in Lebanon – including Beirut".
The Israel-Hezbollah conflict resumed a year ago when the militant group began firing rockets at Israel in support of Hamas at the start of the Gaza war.
The Middle East remains on alert for Israel to retaliate against Iran for an Oct. 1 barrage of missiles launched in response to Israel's assaults on Lebanon.
Netanyahu's office said Israel would listen to the U.S. but would decide its actions according to its own national interest.
The statement was attached to a Washington Post article which said Netanyahu had told President Joe Biden's administration that Israel would strike Iranian military, not nuclear or oil, targets - suggesting a more limited counterstrike aimed at preventing a full-scale war.
Qatar's emir accused Israel on Tuesday of exploiting "international inaction" on the Middle East crisis to move beyond its "aggression" in Gaza to build more illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and send troops into Lebanon.
"Israel deliberately chose to expand the aggression to implement pre-planned schemes in other locations such as the West Bank and Lebanon because it sees that the scope for that is available," Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani said in his annual speech to open Qatar's Shura Council.
Qatar, the U.S. and Egypt have repeatedly tried to mediate an end to the Gaza war, which broke out a year ago when Hamas fighters killed 1,200 people in southern Israel and took over 250 hostage, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel's offensive has killed more than 42,000 people in Gaza, caused widespread destruction and created severe shortages of food, water and fuel.
(Additional reporting by Emma Farge in Geneva, Clauda Tanios in Dubai and Rami Ayyub and Susan Heavey in Washington and James MacKenzie in Jerusalam; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Stephen Coates, Sharon Singleton and Timothy Heritage)
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