Israeli strikes kill 356 in Lebanon, sending tens of thousands fleeing for safety

BEIRUT:

Israel said it had launched airstrikes against hundreds of Hezbollah targets on Monday, killing 356 people and sending tens of thousands fleeing for safety in Lebanon's deadliest day in decades, according to authorities.

After some of the heaviest cross-border exchanges of fire since the hostilities flared last October, Israel warned people in Lebanon to evacuate areas where it said the armed movement was storing weapons.

Nasser Yassin, the Lebanese minister coordinating the crisis response, told Reuters 89 temporary shelters in schools and the like had been activated, with capacity for more than 26,000 people as civilians fled "Israeli atrocities".

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent a short video statement addressed to the Lebanese people. "Israel's war is not with you, it's with Hezbollah. For too long Hezbollah has been using you as human shields," he said.

After almost a year of war against Hamas in Gaza on its southern border, Israel is shifting its focus to the northern frontier, where Iran-backed Hezbollah has been firing rockets into Israel in support of Hamas, also supported by Iran.

Israel's military said it had struck Hezbollah in Lebanon's south, east and north.

Lebanon's health ministry said 356 people had been killed, including 24 children and 42 women, and 1,246 wounded. One Lebanese official said it was Lebanon's highest daily death toll from violence since the 1975-1990 civil war.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Monday marked a "significant peak" in the nearly year-long conflict.

"On this day we have taken out of order tens of thousands of rockets and precise munition. What Hezbollah has built over a period of 20 years since the second Lebanon War, is in fact being destroyed by the IDF," he said in a statement.

The Israeli air force said on X it had carried out about 650 strike missions in the past 24 hours, attacking more than 1,100 targets using more than 1,400 munitions, hitting buildings vehicles and other places where it said weapons were stored.

MORE AIRSTRIKES EXPECTED

On Monday evening Israel launched a strike on Beirut's southern suburbs aimed at senior Hezbollah leader Ali Karaki, the head of the southern front, but his fate was unclear, a security source told Reuters.

Earlier, Gallant said the campaign would continue until "we achieve our goal to return the northern residents safely to their homes". Hezbollah for its part has vowed to fight on until there is a ceasefire in Gaza.

The Israeli military said it had struck about 800 targets connected to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa valley. "Among the targets struck were buildings where Hezbollah hid rockets, missiles, launchers, UAVs and additional terrorist infrastructure," it said in a statement.

Hezbollah has not commented on Israeli claims that it hid weapons in houses, which Reuters could not independently verify, but it has said it does not place military infrastructure near civilians.

In response to the strikes, Hezbollah said it had launched dozens of missiles at a military base in northern Israel.

Sirens warning of Hezbollah rocket fire sounded across northern Israel, including in the port city of Haifa, and in the northern part of the occupied West Bank, the military said.

More attacks were expected in Lebanon.

Israel's military spokesperson said Israeli aircraft were preparing to attack strategic Hezbollah weapons stashed in houses in the Bekaa valley and urged civilians to evacuate.

"The sights now from south Lebanon are of secondary explosions of Hezbollah weapons, which are exploding inside houses," Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a statement.

"In every house we are attacking there are weapons. Rockets, missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles that were meant for and aimed at killing Israeli civilians."

STRIKES PUT MORE PRESSURE ON HEZBOLLAH

The strikes have redoubled the pressure on Hezbollah, which last week suffered heavy losses when thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by its members exploded.

The operation was widely blamed on Israel, which has not confirmed or denied responsibility.

In New York, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Israel wanted to drag the Middle East into a full-blown war by provoking Iran to join the Israel-Hezbollah conflict.

"It is Israel that seeks to create this all-out conflict," he told journalists after his arrival in New York to attend the UN General Assembly, saying the consequences of such instability would be irreversible.

In another major blow to Hezbollah, an Israeli airstrike on Beirut's southern suburb on Friday struck senior commanders of the group, killing 45 people, according to the Lebanese health ministry.

The fighting has raised fears that the U.S., Israel's close ally, and Iran will be sucked into a wider war.

Imad Kreidieh, head of Lebanese telecoms company Ogero, said more than 80,000 automated calls asking people to evacuate their areas had been detected on the network.

Lebanese information minister Ziad Makary said his ministry had received an Israeli call with an order to evacuate its building, but that it would not comply. "This is a psychological war," Makary told Reuters.

Suffering from a financial meltdown, Lebanon can ill afford another war like the one that erupted in 2006, when Israel pounded it during a month-long conflict with Hezbollah.

"If Hezbollah carries out a major operation, Israel will respond and destroy more than this," said state employee Joseph Ghafary in the Beirut district of Sassine. "We can't bear it."

Mohammed Sibai, a shopowner in the Beirut neighbourhood of Hamra, said he saw the escalation as "the beginning of the war". "If they want war, what can we do?" he said. "We cannot do anything."