Lebanon is witnessing its deadliest day in years as Israel attacks Hezbollah

More than 350 people have been killed and 1,200 injured in a spate of Israeli airstrikes across Lebanon, the country’s health minister said, after Israel warned it was “deepening” its attack on the militant group Hezbollah.

Thousands of people also fled their homes as the Israeli army said it carried out more than 800 Hezbollah attacks and told residents to evacuate areas near the Iran-backed group’s positions.

Hezbollah launched dozens of rockets into northern Israel following the strikes. Israeli emergency services said one person was injured by the explosives.

It is the world’s deadliest day in nearly a year of escalating cross-border wars that have raised fears of an endless war.

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

The eleven months of war between Hezbollah and Israel that erupted in the Gaza conflict have killed hundreds of people, most of them Hezbollah fighters, and displaced tens of thousands on both sides of the border.

Hezbollah said it supports the Palestinian armed group, Hamas and will not stop until the shooting in Gaza ends. Both groups are backed by Iran and banned as terrorist organizations by Israel, the UK and other countries.

The Pentagon said it was sending a “small amount” of additional US troops to the Middle East amid the escalating crisis.

“Due to increasing unrest in the Middle East and out of an abundance of caution, we are sending a small number of US troops to augment our existing forces in the region,” Pentagon spokesman Maj Gen Pat Ryder said. press conference.

He would not answer any follow-up questions about the details.

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

Most of the targets were in the southern districts of Sidon, Marjayoun, Nabatieh, Bint Jbeil, Tire, Jezzine and Zahrani, as well as several eastern districts in the Bekaa Valley, according to the state-run National News Agency (NNA).

Later, the NNA said that Israeli strikes intensified in the south and in the Bekaa Valley, causing casualties and extensive damage.

The Ministry of Health in Lebanon said on Monday evening that 356 people died in the strikes and another 1,246 were injured.

It did not report how many of the injured were civilians or fighters but said 24 children and 42 women were among the dead.

Health Minister Firass Abiad added that thousands of families have also left their homes due to the strikes.

There was heavy traffic on the roads leading out of the southern cities of Tire and Sidon as residents fled due to Israeli shelling and recorded warnings from the Israeli army telling them to stay away from buildings and areas near Hezbollah positions and weapons.

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

“They are calling everyone and threatening people on the phone. So we are here to take my boy to school. The situation is not stable,” Issa told Reuters news agency.

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

The Minister of Interior, Bassam Mawlawi, said that schools will be opened in the south and east, Beirut and the northern city of Tripoli as a shelter for those left homeless.

Prime Minister Najib Mikati told a cabinet meeting: “The ongoing Israeli violence in Lebanon is a war of extermination.”

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

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

Earlier, IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told the forum that videos from southern Lebanon showed “Hezbollah weapons exploding inside houses”.

“Every house we hit contains weapons – rockets, missiles, UAVs aimed at killing Israeli civilians,” he said.

He also warned citizens that they should immediately move away from Hezbollah’s weapons and rocket stores “for your safety and security”.

Earlier, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in a video that the Israeli army is “intensifying our attack on Lebanon”. “Actions will continue until we achieve our goal of returning northern residents safely to their homes,” he added.

An Israeli military official stressed that the IDF is “currently focused only on the Israeli campaign” after being asked by reporters if a ground attack on southern Lebanon was imminent.

The official said that Israel has three goals – to undermine Hezbollah’s ability to fire rockets and missiles at the Lebanon-Israel border, to push its forces across the border, and to destroy infrastructure built by Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force that could be used for attacks. Israeli communities.

Hezbollah has not commented on Israel’s allegations that it hid weapons in homes, but the group said in a statement that it responded to “attacks by Israel’s enemies” by firing rockets at Israeli military bases in northern Israel. a weapons manufacturing facility in the Zvulun coastal area north of the port city of Haifa.

The IDF said at least 125 projectiles fell from Lebanon, and that an unspecified number landed in the Lower and Upper Galilee regions, as well as the areas of Carmel, HaAmakim, and Hamifratz, near the coast, and in the Golan Heights residential areas.

Another house was 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 were able to get behind the strong door of the house’s safe room moments before, when the siren went off.

“It is a meter from life to death,” he said.

Israel’s ambulance service said it treated a 59-year-old man with bullet wounds to his lower limbs in the Lower Galilee, while another man was injured while rushing to shelter.

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

Hezbollah remains defiant despite having faced many challenges in the past week.

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

Speaking at the funeral on Sunday, Hezbollah’s deputy leader Naim Qassem said the group would not be disturbed.

“We have entered a new phase,” he said, “the title of which is the open war of reckoning.”