Residents told to leave homes ‘immediately’ for the country’s north after shelling launched from Israel

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Israeli officials have ordered the residents of about 30 villages in southern Lebanon to evacuate, in the first concrete demands since the military launched what it called “limited, localised, and targeted ground raids” on Monday against Hezbollah.

Israel began its incursion, which it has called operation “Northern Arrow”, with a barrage of shelling across the blue line that separates Israel and Lebanon, and said it would send in ground troops against targets located in villages close to the boundary that would “pose an immediate threat to communities in northern Israel”.