Lebanon sees deadliest day in years as Israel intensifies attacks on Hezbollah

More than 270 people have been killed and 1,000 wounded in intense Israeli air strikes across Lebanon, the country’s health minister said, after Israel warned it would “intensify” its attacks on the militant group Hezbollah.

Thousands of people were also forced to flee their homes as the Israeli military said it had struck more than 800 Hezbollah targets and ordered residents to evacuate areas near the Iranian-backed group’s positions.

Hezbollah launched dozens of rockets into northern Israel following the airstrikes. Israeli medics said one person was injured by shrapnel.

It was the deadliest day in nearly a year of escalating cross-border fighting that has raised fears of all-out war.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Sunday he feared such a conflict could turn Lebanon into “another Gaza”.

Eleven months of fighting between Hezbollah and Israel that erupted after the Gaza war has left hundreds dead, mostly Hezbollah fighters, and displaced tens of thousands on both sides of the border.

Hezbollah says it is acting in support of the Palestinian militant group Hamas and will not stop until there is a ceasefire in Gaza. Both groups are backed by Iran and are considered terrorist organizations by Israel, Britain and other countries.

Lebanese media reported that Israeli warplanes carried out their first air strikes across the country at around 06:30 (03:30 GMT) on Monday.

Dozens of locations were targeted in the southern districts of Sidon, Marjayoun, Nabatieh, Bint Jbeil, Tyre, Jezzine and Zahrani, as well as in several eastern districts in the Bekaa Valley, according to the National News Agency (NNA).

Israeli airstrikes then intensified across the south and Bekaa Valley, causing widespread casualties and damage, NNA said.

Lebanese Health Minister Firas Abiad said on Monday afternoon that 274 people were killed in the airstrikes and 1,024 others were injured.

He did not report how many casualties were civilians or fighters but said 21 children and 31 women were among the dead.

Thousands of families have also been displaced by the airstrikes, Mr Abiad added.

There were heavy traffic jams on roads out of the southern cities of Tyre and Sidon as residents fled in response to Israeli shelling and warnings from the Israeli military to stay away from buildings and areas near Hezbollah positions and weapons.

A man in Beirut said he pulled his son out of school after receiving such a warning.

“They called people and threatened people over the phone. So we came here to take my son away from school. The situation is not trustworthy,” Issa told Reuters news agency.

Information Minister Ziad Makary said his ministry had been asked to evacuate the building in Beirut, but he insisted it would not comply with what he called “psychological warfare”.

Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi said schools would be opened in the south and east, Beirut and the northern city of Tripoli to shelter those displaced.

“Israel’s continued aggression against Lebanon is a war of annihilation in every sense of the word,” Prime Minister Najib Mikati told a cabinet meeting.

“We are working as a government to prevent this new Israeli war and avoid falling into the unknown,” he added.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement on Monday afternoon that its aircraft carried out airstrikes on about 800 Hezbollah “terror targets” in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley.

Earlier, IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told a press conference that videos from southern Lebanon showed “Hezbollah weapons exploding inside civilian homes.”

“Every house we attacked contained weapons – missiles, rockets, UAVs – intended to kill Israeli civilians,” he declared.

He also warned residents that they should immediately move away from Hezbollah’s weapons and missile depots “for your safety and protection”.

Earlier, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in a video that Israeli forces were “intensifying our attacks in Lebanon.” “The actions will continue until we achieve the goal of bringing the people of the north back to their homes safely,” he added.

Meanwhile, a senior Israeli military official asserted that the IDF is “currently focused solely on the Israeli air campaign” after being asked by reporters whether a ground invasion of southern Lebanon was imminent.

The official said Israel had three goals – to weaken Hezbollah’s ability to fire rockets and missiles across the Lebanon-Israel border, to push its fighters away from the border and to destroy infrastructure built by Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force that could be used to attack Israeli communities.

Hezbollah did not comment on Israel’s claim that it hid weapons in its homes, but the group said in a statement that it had responded to “attacks by the Israeli enemy” by firing rockets at three Israeli military bases in northern Israel, as well as a weapons manufacturing facility in the coastal area of ​​Zvulun, north of the port city of Haifa.

The IDF said at least 125 projectiles flew over from Lebanon and an unspecified number fell in the Lower Galilee and Upper Galilee areas, as well as the Carmel, HaAmakim and Hamifratz areas, near the coast and the occupied Golan Heights.

A house badly damaged by a rocket in Givat Avni, Lower Galilee.

Resident David Yitzhak told the BBC that he, his wife and six-year-old daughter were unharmed because they had managed to escape through the sturdy door of their home’s safe room seconds earlier, when the alarm went off.

“Life and death are only one meter apart,” he said.

Israel’s ambulance service said it treated a 59-year-old man with a shrapnel wound to his lower leg in the Lower Galilee, and another man who was injured while running to shelter.

On Sunday, Hezbollah launched more than 150 missiles and drones across the border, while Israeli jets struck hundreds of targets across southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah remains resilient despite suffering a series of significant defeats last week.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, 39 people were killed and thousands injured after thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah exploded. And on Friday, Hezbollah said at least 16 members, including senior commanders of its elite Radwan Force, were among 45 killed in an Israeli airstrike south of Beirut.

Speaking at a funeral on Sunday, Hezbollah deputy leader Naim Qassem said the group would not be deterred.

“We have entered a new phase,” he said, “which is headlined by an endless computational war.”