Israel has expanded attacks on southern Lebanon and pounded the capital Beirut’s southern suburbs as the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah has claimed a series of missile attacks on northern Israel, including near the city of Haifa.
The Israeli military said it carried out 120 strikes on Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon “within an hour” on Monday. An earlier attack on a municipal building near Bint Jbeil killed at least 10 Lebanese firefighters, the latest of dozens of first responders killed in recent weeks, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health.
Israel also said it would soon launch operations on Lebanon’s southern coast, telling residents to stay off the beaches and the sea for a 60-kilometre (37-mile) stretch along the Mediterranean.
Hezbollah said it launched a series of rocket attacks on northern Israel, including near the port city of Haifa “with a large rocket salvo” and on Israeli military positions. Later, the group said it targeted areas north of Haifa with another round of rockets.
At least 10 people were wounded in the initial attack on Haifa. It was the first time the port city has been hit since Israel and Hezbollah began trading fire in October last year.
In a statement, the Israeli army said about 135 rockets fired by Hezbollah had crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory as of 5pm (14:00 GMT).
Earlier, Israel carried out more than 30 strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight, the heaviest bombardment since September 23, the day Israel began a significant escalation in its assault on Lebanon, the country’s official National News Agency (NNA) said.
The targets included a petrol station on the main highway leading to the Beirut airport and a warehouse for medical supplies, the agency reported.
Hezbollah also said it targeted Israeli troops in two border villages in southern Lebanon. The Lebanese group said its fighters “bombed … a gathering of Israeli forces” in Maroun al-Ras with “a rocket salvo”.
The Lebanese group has reported several clashes in the Maroun al-Ras area over the past several days since Israel said it had begun “targeted” ground raids in the area.
Hezbollah later said its fighters “bombed … a gathering of Israeli enemy forces” in the nearby village of Blida “with a barrage of rockets and artillery shells”.
The Israeli military said two Israeli soldiers were killed in border-area combat, taking Israel’s military death toll inside Lebanon so far to 11. It also announced it had deployed another division to participate in operations in Lebanon.
Lebanese health authorities say a year of Israeli attacks on the country had killed at least 2,083 people and wounded 9,869.
‘Major displacement crisis’
More than one million people have been displaced, mostly from towns and villages in southern Lebanon, according to local authorities.
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said Lebanon is seeing a “major displacement crisis” as a result of Israel’s escalating air campaign and some of the strikes have violated international law.
Grandi made his remarks during a visit to Beirut on Sunday.
The UN has appealed for $425.7m to respond to the humanitarian crisis. About 40 percent has been funded so far.
Grandi also said there had been “many instances of violations of international humanitarian law in the way the air strikes have been conducted that have destroyed or damaged civilian infrastructure”.
Two people working for Grandi’s agency have also been killed in the strikes.
Grandi said an attack that cut access to a major border crossing between Lebanon and Syria last week had also created an obstacle for civilians trying to flee to safety. The escalating violence has pushed both Lebanese citizens and Syrian refugees in Lebanon to cross the border en masse.
The warnings come as the Israeli military ordered people in more than a dozen towns and villages in southern Lebanon to evacuate. Israeli evacuation warnings in recent days have expanded to include a provincial capital.
Israel’s military spokesperson Avichay Adraee in a post on X told residents to immediately flee north, saying, “you are not allowed to head southward … Any movement to the south puts your lives at risk”.
The latest set of evacuation orders brings the total number of affected towns and villages to 130 across southern Lebanon.
“It’s a significant chunk of the territory,” said Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan, reporting from Hasbaiyya. “Now the Lebanese are very concerned about this because they heard reports of the Israeli army massing at Lebanon’s border, including reserve brigades being called up, and they are now looking at the width of these Israeli evacuation orders and wondering what the actual definition of ‘limited’ is to the Israelis.”
Meanwhile, a UN official told The Associated Press news agency that the Israeli military is setting up a forward operating base close to a UN peacekeeping mission on the border in southern Lebanon.
The base puts peacekeepers there at risk, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The UN peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, said in a statement that it was concerned about “recent activities” by the Israeli military southeast of Maroun al-Ras.
It did not give any details on what Israel was doing, but said it was close to point 6-52, where peacekeepers from the Republic of Ireland are positioned.
This comes days after UNIFIL refused the Israeli military’s request to vacate some of its positions before a ground incursion.
Hezbollah said it ordered its fighters not to attack Israeli troops who recently moved behind the UNIFIL position.
The group reported “unusual movement of Israeli enemy forces behind a UNIFIL position, on the outskirts of the border village of Maroun al-Ras,” ordering fighters “not to take action… to preserve the lives of the peacekeepers”, quoting a field commander in their statement.
The group accused Israel of “trying to use UNIFIL forces as human shields”.
The UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) was created to oversee the withdrawal of Israeli soldiers from southern Lebanon after Israel’s 1978 invasion. The UN expanded its mission after the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, allowing peacekeepers to deploy along the Israeli border.
