Israeli strikes on Lebanon kills over 270
Israeli strikes on Monday killed more than 270 Lebanese in the deadliest barrage of missiles since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war 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 fled the south, and the main highway out of the southern port city of Sidon was jammed with cars heading toward Beirut.
Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said the Israeli strikes on Lebanon on Monday claimed the lives of at least 274, including 21 children.
About 5,000 people had been wounded “in less than a week” of Israeli attacks, Abiad said.
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 some 300 targets Monday, claiming it was going after Hezbollah weapons sites.
The military said it was expanding the airstrikes to include areas of the valley along Lebanon’s eastern border with Syria.
Hezbollah said in a statement that it also fired dozens of rockets at an Israeli military post in Galilee. It also targeted for a second day the facilities of the Rafael defense firm, headquartered in Haifa.
Evacuation warnings
The evacuation warnings were the first of their kind in nearly a year of steadily escalating conflict and came after a particularly heavy exchange of fire on Sunday. Hezbollah launched around 150 rockets, missiles and drones into northern occupied territories in retaliation for strikes that killed a top commander and dozens of fighters.
The increasing strikes and counterstrikes have raised fears of an all-out war, even as Israel is continuing its genocidal war on Gaza. Hezbollah has vowed to continue its strikes in solidarity with the Palestinians.
The Israel’s attacks on Monday came after an Israeli airstrike on a Beirut suburb on Friday killed a top Hezbollah military commander and more than a dozen fighters, as well as dozens of civilians, including women and children.
Last week, thousands of communication devices, used mainly by Hezbollah members, exploded in different parts of Lebanon, killing 39 people and wounding nearly 3,000. Lebanon blamed Israel for the attacks, but Israel neither confirmed nor denied responsibility.
‘Dangerous
consequences’
Iran’s Foreign Ministry warned Israel on Monday of “dangerous consequences” following its deadly strikes.
Kanaani said Israel’s “crimes” in Palestinian territories and their “expansion to Lebanon are a clear example of a serious threat to regional and international peace.”
Meanwhile, Iraq’s top Shia cleric Ayatollah Ali Sistani also warned of the risk of a regional escalation with potentially “catastrophic consequences.”
Sistani urged an end to the Israel’s “genocidal war” in Gaza, where the regime has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians since last October.