BEIRUT — Israel launched a series of attacks on the southern outskirts of Beirut on Thursday after ordering all residents of populated areas to evacuate.
Traffic was backed up in the Lebanese capital on Thursday as panicked residents tried to flee after the Israeli army told residents to “protect your lives and evacuate your homes immediately” and designated evacuation routes.
The Israeli military has said it is targeting Hezbollah across Lebanon, with southern Beirut believed to be a stronghold for Iranian-backed militants.
“The IDF launched a series of airstrikes targeting Hezbollah terrorist sites in the southern suburbs of Beirut,” an Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson told X news agency.
Evacuation orders caused traffic jams on major north-south roads as panicked residents responded to unprecedented demand across the region.
Prior to the latest airstrike, Lebanon said more than 120 people had been killed and nearly 700 injured in airstrikes since Monday. At least 90,000 people have been evacuated.
Israel’s order came after the military on Wednesday told all residents of a vast area of southern Lebanon near the Israeli border to leave, ahead of an expected ground invasion.
Hezbollah has warned Israelis living within five kilometers of the Lebanese border to leave their homes.
Lebanese authorities say at least 102 people have been killed in Israeli airstrikes over the past four days. Israeli authorities have not reported a death toll.
Israeli aircraft have carried out waves of attacks targeting Hezbollah in the southern suburbs of Beirut, southern Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley since Monday, when Hezbollah fired rockets and drones across the border in retaliation for the assassination of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei.
The move that drew Lebanon into the war between Israel, the United States and Iran comes just 15 months after a ceasefire agreement ended more than a year of all-out fighting between Israel and Hezbollah that devastated Lebanon.
Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem vowed on Wednesday that Shiite militias and political parties would confront Israel “to the limit, with maximum sacrifice,” adding: “We will not surrender.”
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The announcement came a day after Israel’s military chief of staff, Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, said he was “determined to eliminate the Hezbollah threat and will not stop until the terrorist organization is disarmed.”
The Israeli military said Thursday that it carried out nighttime airstrikes on Hezbollah’s headquarters in Beirut, saying the attacks were aimed at planning and carrying out attacks against Israeli forces and civilians.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said at least three people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a vehicle on the main road to the city’s airport.
A residential building on the outskirts of Beirut was attacked late Wednesday, but local residents said they believed no one was there at the time.
On Thursday morning, multiple sources told the BBC they had left the building earlier in the week due to safety concerns and were staying elsewhere, noting that the area had been targeted in the past. They said they did not know or would not comment on what the target was.
One woman said as she and her husband looked at the wreckage: “We moved out on Monday because we were worried something would happen. We were supposed to take a shower and get our things today, but then we found this.”
The Israeli military has not commented on the attack.
However, it said it had killed “several Hezbollah terrorists” operating in southern Lebanon overnight.
Lebanon’s state news agency later reported that Mukhtar, the mayor of the southern town of Kuffour, and his wife were killed in an airstrike on their home.
It said Hamas official Wasim Attallah al-Ali and his wife were also killed in the Badawi Palestinian refugee camp near Tripoli in the north.
The Israeli military said it targeted Ali because he was the commander of Hamas’ military wing and was responsible for training fighters in Lebanon.
