ISRAEL’S air force hit different parts of southern Lebanon today as the military issued evacuation warnings for nine villages, including one that has been spared much of the destruction and was sheltering thousands of people displaced by the three-month war.

At least six people were killed, Lebanon’s state news agency reported, with hundreds of families forced to flee the village of Anqoun and the area of Aarnaya, on the edge of the predominantly Christian village of Maghdoucheh, near the southern port city of Sidon.

The strikes came a day after Hezbollah the latest ceasefire agreement between Israel and the Lebanese government, and demanded a complete Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.

Lebanon’s parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a strong ally of Hezbollah who has been acting as a mediator on behalf of the group, said in his first comment on the agreement reached in Washington this week that he accepts Hezbollah’s withdrawal from the areas south of the Litani River as long as it coincides with the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon.

The river, located about 20 miles north of the border with Israel, forms the boundary of a 2006 UN-established buffer zone in which Hezbollah is banned. Israeli troops have currently pushed far past the Litani River into southern Lebanon.

Mr Berri added in a statement that the ceasefire should be “complete and comprehensive” without any restrictions or conditions on land, at sea and in the air, and “without bulldozing and demolishing everything that exists.” He was referring to wide areas that have been demolished by Israeli troops.

Mr Berri criticised the creation of “pilot zones” in the agreement as well as calls for a unilateral ceasefire by Hezbollah and its withdrawal from border areas south of the Litani River.

The war in Lebanon, where Israeli forces have seized large swaths of the south since March 2, threatens efforts to end the Iran war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has demanded that any lasting truce extend to Lebanon. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces elections later this year, wants to press ahead with Israel’s offensive until Hezbollah no longer poses a threat.

Nearly three hours after the evacuation warnings were issued, Israeli warplanes struck the villages, including Anqoun, where some 2,500 people displaced by the fighting were sheltering.