- Israel army tells Lebanese to ‘move away’ from Hezbollah sites
- The Israeli military had launched new strikes against Hezbollah sites since Monday morning
BEIRUT: Lebanon said 50 people were killed and more than 300 wounded in Israeli strikes on the south on Monday, the heaviest daily toll in nearly a year of cross-border clashes.
“Continued Israeli enemy raids on southern towns and villages… killed 50 people and wounded more than 300, with children, women and emergency workers among the dead and wounded,” a health ministry statement said, adding that the toll was provisional.
Dozens of Israeli air strikes hit Lebanon’s south and east Monday as Israel’s military warned Lebanese to move away from Hezbollah targets.
The Israeli military said it carried out about 150 strikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon over the course of one hour beginning at 6:30 am (0330 GMT).
The official National News Agency (NNA) said “enemy warplanes launched… more than 80 air strikes in half an hour,” targeting south Lebanon’s Nabatiyeh district. It also reported strikes in the Tyre area.
At the same time, the NNA reported “intense raids in the Bekaa” Valley in the east, deep inside Lebanon near the Syrian border, including in the vicinity of Baalbek and the outskirts of Hermel.
The NNA said the strikes in the east killed a “civilian,” a shepherd, “and wounded two members of his family” and four others.
AFP correspondents in the south and east reported the sound of heavy strikes.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati denounced a “destructive plan” amid intense Israeli strikes.
“The continuing Israeli aggression on Lebanon is a war of extermination in every sense of the word and a destructive plan that aims to destroy Lebanese villages and towns,” Mikati told a cabinet meeting.
He urged “the United Nations and the General Assembly and influential countries… to deter the (Israeli) aggression.”
A Hezbollah source, requesting anonymity, said strikes in the Bekaa Valley targeted the area from east to west.
Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said that “we advise civilians from Lebanese villages located in and next to buildings and areas used by Hezbollah for military purposes, such as those used to store weapons, to immediately move out of harm’s way for their own safety.”
Hagari told a media briefing Israel’s military “will engage in (more) extensive and precise strikes against terror targets which have been embedded widely throughout Lebanon.”
Hezbollah has traded near daily cross-border fire with Israeli forces in support of Hamas since the Palestinian militant group’s October 7 attack triggered the Gaza war.
Violence has spiked dramatically in recent days, and Israel and Hezbollah traded heavy fire over the weekend, raising fears of all-out war.
AFP