Israel launched new attacks against Lebanon and Hezbollah. Hours before the airstrikes, Israel’s chief military spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, warned residents of southern Lebanon, as well as those living near Hezbollah strongholds, to leave immediately to avoid further strikes.
Nevertheless, according to foreign news media and Israeli military announcements, the strikes are back-to-back.
While Lebanon’s Ministry of Health has stated that there is at least one dead and 20 injured, some of them in serious condition. At the same time, there has been extensive damage to homes and businesses in many cities, as the Lebanese state news agency points out.
Israeli strikes have reached as far as Ermel in northeastern Lebanon, more than 80 miles from the Israeli border. Dozens of Israeli warplanes attacked more than 150 targets on Monday morning, Israel’s military said, part of an air assault expected to continue in the coming hours.
The update from the Israeli side
In fact, Hagari’s announcement was broadcast live on Israeli television, while it was also translated into Arabic, in order to inform the civilian population.
At the same time, the vice admiral was asked if a ground conflict should also be expected, however as he pointed out, “we are only focusing on Israel’s air campaign”.
Displacements due to Israel’s attack on Lebanon
The bombings, according to the first information, are wide-scale and are currently concentrated in southern Lebanon. At the same time, as reported by the New York Times, there are cities like Tire and Nabatieh, which host hundreds of thousands of civilians, and most of them have not left their homes.
More than 110,000 people have already been displaced from the southern part of the country, leaving some border towns almost completely empty amid the escalating conflict of the past 11 months. Mohamad Srour, the mayor of Aita al-Chaab, said in a text message that there are no civilians in the city to evacuate.
According to Lebanon’s state news agency, residents of Beirut, in addition to other areas, have received text messages from the Israeli army warning them to evacuate. It was not immediately clear how widespread those messages were. The office of Lebanon’s information minister, Ziad Makari, received a call with an audio recording telling people to evacuate the building, the agency said.
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