Israel said yesterday it had carried out airstrikes on hundreds of Hezbollah targets, killing 356 people, in what authorities said was the deadliest day in Lebanon in decades.
After some of the most intense cross-border exchanges of fire since the fighting broke out last October, Israel has warned residents in Lebanon to leave areas where it says armed groups are storing weapons.
Tens of thousands of people are fleeing southern Lebanon "because of Israeli atrocities", Lebanese Minister for Coordination of Crisis Response, Nasser Yassin, told Reuters. He said that 89 temporary shelters have been activated in schools and similar facilities, with a capacity for more than 26.000 people so far.
Families from southern Lebanon jammed the roads to the north yesterday, fleeing Israeli bombardment into an uncertain future, children clutched on their parents' laps, suitcases strapped to the roofs of cars and dark smoke billowing behind them.
A huge number of cars, vans and pickup trucks were loaded with things and filled with people, often with several generations in one vehicle, while some families fled in a hurry, taking only basic things.
"When they started attacking houses in the morning, I took all the important papers and we went out. They were attacking all around us. It was scary," said Abed Afou, whose village of Jater was badly hit in the morning attack.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the Lebanese people in a short video yesterday. "Israel is not at war with you, but with Hezbollah. For too long, Hezbollah has been using you as a human shield," he said.
After nearly a year of war against Hamas in Gaza on its southern border, Israel is shifting its focus to its northern border, where Hezbollah fires rockets into Israel in support of Hamas, which is also backed by Iran.
The Israeli military said it hit Hezbollah targets in southern, eastern and northern Lebanon.
The Lebanese Minister of Health said that 356 people were killed, including at least 21 children and 39 women, and that 1246 were wounded. A Lebanese official said it was the highest number of victims of violence in Lebanon since the 1975-1990 civil war.
Netanyahu said Israel faces "complicated days" as it steps up attacks on southern Lebanon, and called on Israelis to remain united.
"I promised that we will restore the security balance, the balance of power in the north - that is exactly what we are doing," he said.
Senior Hezbollah leader Ali Karaki, the leader of the southern front, was targeted in last night's attack on the southern suburbs of Beirut, but his fate was unknown last night, a security source told Reuters.
Earlier yesterday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant said that the military campaign will continue until "we achieve our goal of the safe return of the residents of northern Israel to their homes." Hezbollah, on the other hand, promised to fight until there is a ceasefire in Gaza.
The Israeli military said it hit about 800 targets linked to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley. "Among the hit targets are buildings where Hezbollah hid rockets, missiles, launchers and additional terrorist infrastructure," the statement said.
Hezbollah did not comment on Israel's claims yesterday that it hides weapons in homes, but stressed that it does not place military infrastructure near civilians.
In response to the attacks, Hezbollah said it fired dozens of rockets at a military base in northern Israel.
Sirens warning of Hezbollah rocket attacks were heard across northern Israel, including the port city of Haifa, as well as in the northern part of the occupied West Bank, the military said.
An Israeli military spokesman said Israeli planes were preparing to attack Hezbollah's strategic weapons stockpiles located in homes in the Bekaa Valley and urged civilians to evacuate immediately.
"The scenes now from southern Lebanon are secondary explosions from Hezbollah weapons, exploding inside houses," Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a televised statement.
"In every house we attack there are weapons. Rockets, missiles, drones that were intended to kill Israeli civilians."
The attacks added to the pressure on Hezbollah, which suffered heavy losses last Sunday when thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by its members exploded. In another major blow, an Israeli airstrike on a southern suburb of Beirut on Friday killed 45 people, including senior Hezbollah commanders.
The fighting has heightened fears that the United States, a close ally of Israel, and Iran could be drawn into a wider war.
Imad Kreidijeh, head of the Lebanese telecommunications company Ogero, said more than 80.000 automated calls were detected online warning people to evacuate their areas. Lebanese Information Minister Ziyad Makari said his ministry had received an Israeli call ordering it to evacuate its building but would not comply. "This is psychological warfare," Makari told Reuters.
Lebanon, facing financial collapse, can hardly cope with another war like the one that broke out in 2006, when Israel bombed the country during a month-long conflict with Hezbollah, causing severe damage to infrastructure.
Mohamed Sibai, a shop owner in Beirut's Hamra district, said he saw the escalation of attacks as "the beginning of a war". "If they want war, what can we do?" he said. "We can't do anything".
Pezeshkian: Iran does not want war, Israel is the one provoking
The Israeli government wants to drag the Middle East into a general war by provoking Iran to join the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, the Iranian president warned yesterday, pointing to "unfathomable" consequences.
Masud Pezeshkiyan, addressing a group of journalists after arriving in New York for the UN General Assembly, said: "We do not want to be the cause of instability in the Middle East, because the consequences would be unfathomable."
"We want to live in peace, we don't want war," he added. "It is Israel that is striving to create this general conflict."
Pezeshkian, a relatively moderate politician who was elected in July on the promise of a pragmatic foreign trade policy, accused the international community of remaining silent in the face of what he called "Israeli genocide" in Gaza.
"We will defend any group that fights for its rights and itself," Pezeshkian said when asked if Iran would enter into a conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. He didn't want to go into the details any further.
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