Thousands clog roads desperately trying to flee firing line in southern Lebanon

Thousands of people are fleeing southern Lebanon after a fresh wave of Israeli airstrikes targeting Hezbollah.

The main highway out of the port city of Sidon was jammed with cars heading toward Beirut in the biggest exodus since 2006.

Israeli bombing on Monday killed more than 490 people, including more than 90 women and children – a staggering one-day toll for a country still reeling from a deadly attack on communication devices last week.

It eclipses that of Beirut’s devastating port explosion in 2020, when hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate stored in a warehouse detonated, killing at least 218 people and wounding more than 6,000.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged Lebanese civilians to heed Israeli calls to ‘get out of harm’s way’ and flee their homes rather than be used as ‘human shields’.

‘Israel’s war is not with you,’ he said in a televised message. ‘It is with Hezbollah.

‘It has placed rockets in your living rooms and in your garage. To defend our people against Hezbollah strikes, we must take out these weapons. Please, get out of harm’s way now.’

Israel’s military spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said the army will do ‘whatever is necessary’ to push Hezbollah from Lebanon’s border with Israel.

Rear Admiral Hagari claimed Monday’s widespread airstrikes had inflicted heavy damage on Hezbollah.

But he would not give a timeline for the ongoing operation and said Israel was prepared to launch a ground invasion of Lebanon if needed.

‘We are not looking for wars. We are looking to take down the threats,’ he said. ‘We will do whatever is necessary to do to achieve this mission. We hope to do it as shortly as we can.’

Hagari said Hezbollah has launched some 9,000 rockets and drones into Israel since last October, including 250 on Monday alone.

The military spokesman said Israeli warplanes struck 1,600 Hezbollah targets on Monday, destroying cruise missiles, long- and short-range rockets and attack drones. He said many were hidden in residential areas, showing photos of what he said were weapons hidden in private homes.

‘Hezbollah has turned southern Lebanon into a war zone,’ he told a news conference.

Israel estimates Hezbollah has some 150,000 rockets and missiles, including guided missiles and long-range projectiles capable of striking anywhere in Israel.

Earlier on Monday evening, the Israeli military said it had carried out a targeted strike in Beirut. It did not give details.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported three missiles hit southern Beirut’s Beir al-Abed neighborhood. Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV said six people were wounded.

Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said the earlier strikes hit hospitals, medical centres and ambulances. The government ordered schools and universities to close across most of the country and began preparing shelters for the displaced.

Some strikes hit residential areas in the south and the eastern Bekaa Valley. One hit a wooded area as far away as Byblos, more than 80 miles from the border north of Beirut.

The military said 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, where the group was founded in 1982 with the help of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

Israel’s military chief, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, said Israel was preparing its ‘next phases’ of operations against Hezbollah, and that its airstrikes were ‘proactive’, targeting Hezbollah infrastructure built over the past 20 years.

Halevi said more details would be released in the near future, and that the goal was to allow displaced Israelis to return to their homes in northern Israel.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah said it fired dozens of rockets toward Israel, including at military bases. It also targeted for a second day the facilities of the Rafael defence firm, headquartered in Haifa.

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 Sunday.

Hezbollah launched around 150 rockets, missiles and drones into northern Israel in retaliation for strikes that killed a top commander and dozens of fighters.

The increasing strikes and counter-strikes have raised fears of all-out war, even as Israel battles Hamas in Gaza and tries to negotiate the release of scores of hostages taken in Hamas’ October 7 attack.

Last week, thousands of communications devices, used mainly by Hezbollah members, exploded in different parts of Lebanon, killing 39 people and wounding nearly 3,000, many of them civilians.

Lebanon blamed Israel, but Israel did not confirm or deny responsibility.

Hezbollah began firing into Israel a day after the October 7 attack in what it said was an attempt to pin down Israeli forces to help Palestinian fighters in Gaza.

Israel has retaliated with airstrikes, and the conflict has steadily intensified.

Hezbollah has said it will keep up attacks until there is a ceasefire in Gaza, but that appears increasingly elusive as the war nears its anniversary.

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