Shortly after 8 a.m. Thursday morning, the Israeli army warned the inhabitants of three villages in Sour district to evacuate their homes "without delay."

The villages threatened by the warning, issued only on the army's Arabic-language spokesperson's X account, are Burj al-Shemali, al-Hosh and Maashouk. All three are on the outskirts of the city of Sour, just a few kilometers from the city's center, and are also close to al-Bass, which the Israeli army bombed overnight.

Around 9:30 a.m. the first reports of bombings came in from al-Hosh, where at least one Israeli airstrike had been launched against the village.

While the Israeli army has on several occasions in the last two months of war told entire villages to evacuate — a move criticized by rights groups as a tool for forcibly displacing a population — this evacuation notice is unusual in that it is accompanied by the maps that usually pertain to the evacuation warnings issued for one or two buildings, more commonly used in Beirut's southern suburbs. This warning concerns hundreds of buildings.

"You are prohibited from heading south," the message reads, "Any movement south could be dangerous to your life. We will inform you of the appropriate time to return to your homes as soon as the conditions are suitable for this."