Lebanese President Joseph Aoun has condemned Israel’s targeting of key infrastructure in southern Lebanon in a statement carried by the official National News Agency, Al Jazeera reports.

Aoun has denounced strikes on bridges, including Lebanon’s Qasmiyeh Bridge over the Litani River, calling them a violation of sovereignty and a potential precursor to a “ground invasion.”

“These actions reflect a dangerous trend toward the systematic destruction of infrastructure, civilian facilities, and residential areas in Lebanese villages, amounting to a policy of collective punishment against civilians,” he has said.

“This is unacceptable, condemned, and unjustified, and it explicitly violates the rules of international humanitarian law, which prohibit targeting civilians and their essential facilities.”

Aoun calls attacking the Qasmiyeh Bridge “an attempt to sever the geographical connection between the southern Litani region and the rest of Lebanese territory [that] impedes the delivery of humanitarian aid, and falls within suspicious schemes to establish a buffer zone, solidify the reality of the occupation, and seek Israeli expansion within Lebanese territory”.