ISRAELI strikes have killed more than 492 Lebanese people, including at least 24 children, the health ministry said, in the deadliest barrage since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.
It comes as the Israeli military warned residents in southern and eastern Lebanon to evacuate their homes ahead of a widening air campaign against Hezbollah.
Thousands of Lebanese people fled the south, and the main highway out of the southern port city of Sidon was jammed with cars heading toward Beirut in the biggest exodus since the 2006 fighting.
More than 1000 other people were wounded in the strikes — a staggering one-day toll for a country still reeling from a deadly attack on communication devices last week.
The government ordered schools and universities to close on Tuesday across most of the country and began preparing shelters for people displaced from the south.
The Israeli military announced that it hit 800 targets on Monday, claiming it was going after Hezbollah weapons sites.
Some strikes hit in residential areas of towns in the south and the eastern Bekaa Valley. One strike hit a wooded area as far away as Byblos in central Lebanon, more than 80 miles from the border north of Beirut.
The Israeli military claimed it was expanding the airstrikes to include areas of the valley along Lebanon’s eastern border with Syria.
Hezbollah has long had an established presence in the valley, and it is where the group was founded in 1982 with the help of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah said in a statement that it fired dozens of rockets toward Israel, including at an military post in Galilee. It also targeted for a second day the facilities of the Rafael defence firm, headquartered in Haifa.
Hezbollah has vowed to continue its strikes in solidarity with the Palestinians and Hamas.
Israel, meanwhile, says it is committed to returning calm to its northern border.
Associated Press journalists in southern Lebanon reported heavy airstrikes targeting many areas Monday morning, including some far from the border.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said the strikes hit a forested area in the central province of Byblos, about 130 kilometres (81 miles) north of the Israeli-Lebanese border, for the first time since the exchanges began in October.
Israel also bombed targets in the north-eastern Baalbek and Hermel regions, where a shepherd was killed and two family members were wounded, according to the news agency.
It said a total of 30 people were wounded in strikes.
The Lebanese Health Ministry asked hospitals in southern Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley to postpone surgeries that could be done later.
The ministry said in a statement that its request aimed to keep hospitals ready to deal with people wounded by “Israel’s expanding aggression on Lebanon”.
Lebanon’s information minister, Ziad Makary, said in a statement that his office in Beirut had received a recorded message telling people to leave the building.
“This comes in the framework of the psychological war implemented by the enemy,” Makary said, and urged people “not to give the matter more attention than it deserves”.
Last week, thousands of communications devices exploded in different parts of Lebanon, killing 39 people and wounding nearly 3000.
Lebanon blamed Israel for the attacks, but Israel did not confirm or deny any responsibility.
