Israel said it has hit 300 targets in escalating conflict with Hezbollah, after thousands told to flee their homes.
Continuing Israeli airstrikes against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon have killed 182 people and injured 727, the country’s health ministry has said, in the heaviest daily toll in nearly a year of cross-border clashes.
“Children, women and paramedics” were among the casualties in the strikes on southern towns and villages, the ministry said, as thousands of people fled north along the main road towards the capital, Beirut.
Israel said it had hit 300 targets in the most intense barrage against the militant group Hezbollah since the war in Gaza began in October last year. It said it was expanding the operation to include areas of the Bekaa valley, along Lebanon’s eastern border.
In response, about 35 rockets were fired from Lebanon towards the Safed area of Israel, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said, with some coming down in open areas close to the community of Ami’ad.
Earlier in the day, the IDF had warned Lebanese people living in or near buildings where Hezbollah was “hiding weapons” to evacuate. Citizens in Beirut and other areas received text messages and recorded messages asking them to immediately evacuate their homes.
“The actions will continue until we achieve our goal to return the northern residents safely to their homes,” Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said in a video published by his office, setting the stage for a long conflict as Hezbollah has vowed to fight on until there is a ceasefire in Gaza. “These are days in which the Israeli public will have to show composure.”
Roads leading out of south Lebanon were choked with traffic as people fled the relentless Israeli bombing. Areas that have served as safe zones for the displaced since last year are suddenly within the crosshairs of the Israeli military.
“The airstrikes have reached us, on the outskirts of Tyre. There was a strike just 100 metres behind the displacement centre, there were three of them,” said Bilal Kashmar, a coordinator in a displacement centre in the southern city of Tyre. He showed a video of a plume of smoke rising just across the street from the shelter that houses hundreds of families. (The Guardian)
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