Cars sit in traffic in Sidon, southern Lebanon as they flee Israeli air strikes hitting places further south. [Mohammed Zaatari/AP Photo]Published On 23 Sep 202423 Sep 2024
Israel launched hundreds of air attacks in southern and eastern Lebanon on Monday, killing at least 274 people, as the Israeli military called on residents to immediately evacuate places where it claimed that Hezbollah stores weapons.
Thousands of people fled southern Lebanon, jamming the main highway to Beirut. At least 1,024 people were injured in the attacks, the Health Ministry said.
The Israeli military said it hit 800 targets linked to Hezbollah weapons sites on Monday. It said it was expanding the operation to include areas of the Bekaa Valley, along Lebanon’s eastern border.
Residents of different villages in southern Lebanon posted photos on social media that they said showed their towns being struck.
The wave of air attacks came a day after Hezbollah fired more than 100 rockets into northern Israel, with some landing near the city of Haifa.
Hezbollah’s rockets were in response to an Israeli air strike on a Beirut suburb on Friday that killed a top Hezbollah military commander and more than a dozen of the group’s members, along with civilians including women and children.
Last week, thousands of communications devices, used mainly by Hezbollah members, exploded in different parts of Lebanon, killing 39 people and wounding nearly 3,000. Lebanon blamed the attacks on Israel, but Israel did not confirm or deny its responsibility.
Children, women and medics were among the victims of Monday’s attacks. Israel told residents of southern Lebanon to evacuate from homes and other buildings where it claimed Hezbollah had stored weapons. [Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters] Advertisement People carry belongings at a beach as they flee in Tyre, southern Lebanon. Hezbollah and Israel have been trading near daily fire for almost a year, but the Israeli bombardment has ramped up in recent days. [Aziz Taher/Reuters]Lebanese media reported residents receiving text messages telling them to move away from any building where Hezbollah stores arms until further notice. The Lebanese group has been firing rockets into Israel since October 8 in support of Palestinians amid a devastating onslaught by Israeli forces on Gaza. [Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters]The warnings were the first of their kind in nearly a year of steadily escalating conflict that has forced the displacement of communities on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border. [Mohammed Zaatari/AP Photo]People in heavy traffic drive north from Lebanon’s southern coastal city Sidon as many flee Israeli bombardment. [Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters]At least 182 people have been killed and more than 727 wounded in Israeli attacks across Lebanon on Monday. [Aziz Taher/Reuters] Advertisement Members of a Syrian family sit with their belongings in the back of a truck as they wait in a traffic jam in Sidon. [Mahmoud Zayyat/AFP]A man and children ride a motorcycle amid heavy traffic in Sidon. [Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters]Bilal Kachmar, an official at the disaster management unit in Tyre, said ‘hundreds of displaced people rushed to’ a school-turned-shelter in Sidon with many others ‘camping out in the streets’. [Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters]
