Israeli strikes kill Lebanese soldiers
This photograph taken during a media tour organized by the Hezbollah shows a photographer standing next to an overturned ambulance at Nabi Sheet town after an Israeli military operation in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon, on Mar. 7, 2026. PHOTO: AFP
Three Lebanese soldiers were killed in Israeli strikes on Tuesday, the Lebanese army said, as Israel carried out new raids and again ordered residents of vast parts of southern Lebanon to evacuate.
Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East war on March 2 when pro-Iran Hezbollah launched rockets towards Israel in response to US-Israeli strikes that killed Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Israel has responded with intense strikes in multiple Lebanese regions and ground operations in the south, with its finance minister saying this month that Beirut's suburbs would soon "resemble" the badly-damaged Gazan city of Khan Yunis.
From Geneva, the UN rights office said Tuesday that threats by Israeli officials "to impose the same level of destruction on Lebanon as inflicted in Gaza are wholly unacceptable".
In the southern city of Sidon, far from the border, displaced people were sleeping in their cars parked along the seafront corniche, according to an AFP team there.
The city "is full, we have no more capacity", said Jihan Kaisi, the director of an NGO that runs a school-turned-shelter, where more than 1,100 people are crammed together.
"Lots of people are coming every day to ask for shelter but we don't have space anymore, we can't accept them," she continued, adding that the road from the south was blocked on Monday with people fleeing north following evacuation warnings.
The Lebanese military said three of its soldiers were killed in two Israeli air strikes in southern Lebanon, while the Israeli army maintained its operations were not directed "against the Lebanese army" and said at least one of them was "under review".
Lebanon's army has tried to stay out of the war, but three of its soldiers were killed by Israeli shelling earlier this month during a failed Israeli commando operation in eastern Lebanon.
Israel conducted an air strike near Beirut's airport in the city's southern suburbs on Tuesday, killing one person and wounding nine, according to the health ministry.
The Lebanese civil aviation authority said in a statement that the airport continued to operate normally and that the road leading to it remained passable.