At least 100 people are reported to have been killed as Israel launches widespread strikes on Hezbollah targets across Lebanon.
The Lebanese health ministry said at least 100 people had been killed after Israel told Lebanese civilians to evacuate areas where it said the armed group was storing weapons on Monday morning.
The strikes came after Hezbollah launched some of the deepest strikes into Israel of the year-long conflict, which continues to escalate beyond previous red lines.
The Israeli military spokeman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said on Monday that Israel was “striking terrorist targets throughout Lebanon” and urged residents in areas of the south of the country to evacuate the area, where he claimed that Hezbollah was storing weapons.
“This is an advance warning for your own safety and the safety of your family: we advise civilians from Lebanese villages located in and next to buildings and areas used by Hezbollah for military purposes, such as those used to store weapons, to immediately move out of harm’s way for their own safety,” he said.
Residents of southern Lebanon reported receiving calls from Lebanese phone numbers warning them to leave buildings said to be used by Hezbollah, in an echo of Israeli methods used to clear areas of Gaza.
Lebanon’s information minister Ziad Makary said his ministry had received a call ordering the building to evacuate, but said this would not be followed, describing the messages as “psychological war”.
The Israeli Air Force said it had bombed more than 300 Hezbollah targets on Monday morning, with impacts reported in the south and east of Lebanon, with one missile landing in the eastern port city of Byblos that was not previously targeted.
The Lebanese health ministry told hospitals in affected areas to cancel non-emergency procedures.
Alarms sounded in Israel’s northern Galilee region as rocket launches from Lebanon continued on Monday, after Hezbollah launched some of its deepest strikes of the war on Sunday.
Media footage showed fires in the city of Haifa as the militant group confirmed it had deployed powerful Fadi-1 and Fadi-2 missiles for the first time during the conflict that has raged throughout the war in Gaza.
The Lebanese faction had vowed reprisals after a series of dramatic Israeli attacks last week, including the assassination of Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil and other senior officials in a strike on an apartment block in capital city Beirut that also killed several civilians, including children.
Israel is also thought to be responsible for an attack last week targeting the communication devices of Hezbollah members that killed at least 42 and injured thousands more, including civilians. The Lebanese government said the attacks were war crimes.
Israel has declared a goal of allowing tens of thousands of civilians displaced by fighting from the north of the country to return to their homes. Large numbers of civilians have also been displaced in southern Lebanon.
“We are deepening our attacks in Lebanon, the actions will continue until we achieve our goal to return the northern residents safely to their homes,” said Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, on Monday. “These are days in which the Israeli public will have to show composure.”
Israel’s Channel 12 News reported that Mr Gallant, Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and IDF Chief of Staff, Herzi Halevi, had formed a strategy of gradually escalating attacks without triggering a full-scale war.
Hezbollah’s deputy leader Naim Kassem said on Sunday that the group was now engaging in what he called an “open-ended battle” with Israel, with both sides signalling determination not to back down.
US President Joe Biden said the US was working to contain escalation. “We’re going to do everything we can to keep a wider war from breaking out. And we’re still pushing hard,” he said on Sunday.
Mr Gallant said on Monday he had spoken with his US counterpart, Lloyd Austin, and “provided the Secretary with a situation assessment of Hezbollah threats and briefed him on IDF operations to degrade Hezbollah’s ability to launch attacks against Israeli civilians”.
The White House has denied having prior knowledge of the attack on Hezbollah communication devices last week.
Michael Young, senior editor at the Carnegie Middle East Center based in Lebanese capital Beirut, told i that neither side wanted full-scale war but the risk of escalation was increasing.
“What we are watching is a game of deterrence,” he said. “In the last week, what has become more than evident is that Hezbollah is constrained in its ability to escalate the conflict to the same levels as Israel.”
Hezbollah is wary of using more powerful missiles that could trigger a destructive Israeli response that would damage its domestic standing, said Dr Young, while Israel has dramatically raised the stakes through its pager attacks and assassinations in Beirut.
“The message in Hezbollah’s response yesterday was to say: ‘if you hit the southern suburbs, we can ensure that no Israeli will come back to northern Israel because we’re going to keep bombing northern Israel,’” he said. “The Israelis came back today and said ‘we want to depopulate parts of southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley.’”
Israel is “taking the initiative” while keeping attacks targeted, rather than pursuing the wide-scale devastation seen in Gaza, said Miri Eisin, a former IDF colonel and senior intelligence officer, and head of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism.
“What we’re doing now is not reactive, it’s not preemptive, it’s initiative,” she said. “This means that this is already the action of a broader plan where we are attacking after years of gathering information on the different capabilities that Hezbollah has amassed. This does not destroy Hezbollah. This destroys a portion of their capabilities.”
“We are telling the civilians that they live next to the rockets and the launchers and we are showing them in pictures. We are presenting this both to the people there and to the world,” Dr Eisin added. “I would say it is vastly different from in the Gaza Strip…we are showing the types of weapons, and we’re showing all of the attacks in great detail.”
