The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) conducted airstrikes at over 1,600 Hezbollah targets in the south of Lebanon, killing over 492 people, including 35 children and 58 women. The deadliest attack since the Gaza war began came as Israel warned people that its forces were targeting homes where rockets, drones and missiles were stored by Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.
In a short video addressing the Lebanese people, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. "Israel's war is not with you, it's with Hezbollah. For too long Hezbollah has been using you as human shields," he warned. The IDF too warned people in Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley to flee from homes where such weapons were stored.
Monday's airstrike, the deadliest in Lebanon since its 1975-90 civil war, hit the residential areas of towns in the south and the Bekaa Valley in the east. An airstrike was reported in Byblos in central Lebanon, which is over 129km from the Israel border.
The attacks sent Lebanese people fleeing in cars, vans and trucks causing traffic bottlenecks on highways towards the north of the country. "I grabbed all the important papers and we got out. Strikes all around us. It was terrifying," Abed Afou, who was fleeing with his family, including three sons aged 6 to 13 and several other relatives, told Reuters. He added that they had no clue as to where they would stay but the aim was to reach Beirut.
In the civil war-torn Lebanon, there is a borderline bankrupt government that has no president since Michel Aoun’s term ended two years ago. The Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah operates as a "state within a state" controlling much of the country's Shiite-majority areas, including parts of Beirut, southern Lebanon, and the eastern Bekaa Valley region.
According to Nasser Yassin, the Lebanese minister coordinating the crisis response, 89 temporary shelters in schools and other facilities had been activated, with a capacity for more than 26,000 people.
Lebanese media and people, even in central parts of the country, have reported receiving phone calls telling them to evacuate. Information Minister Ziad Makary’s office in Beirut said it received a landline call featuring a recorded message that told it to evacuate the building to avoid an air strike.
Meanwhile, Israel said Hezbollah bombarded northern parts of Israel with over 200 rockets on Monday, setting off sirens near the bay metropolis of Haifa and as far south as some West Bank settlements near Tel Aviv. Nobody was injured but some were treated for anxiety. Hezbollah fired some 20 rockets at northern Israel in three separate salvos, with all the projectiles either intercepted by air defense systems or falling in open areas, the IDF said.
However, Netanyahu in his video message said the people to stay united as Israel faced "complicated days". "I promised that we would change the security balance, the balance of power in the north. That is exactly what we are doing," Netanyahu added. “We do not wait for a threat, we anticipate it. Everywhere, in every theater, at any time,” he said.