Lebanon’s Hezbollah group urges Israelis to evacuate border areas as Israel continues to bomb the country.
The death toll from Israeli strikes on Lebanon this week has risen to at least 123 people, the Lebanese Ministry of Health says, as a new wave of strikes pounded the country and Hezbollah warned Israeli residents to evacuate towns within 5km (3.11 miles) of their northern border, in one of the fiercest fronts in the wider United States-Israel war on Iran.
“The toll from the Israeli aggression on Monday… increased to 123 martyrs and 683 wounded,” a ministry statement said on Thursday.
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Lebanese state media said early on Friday that Israel had launched air strikes on several towns in southern Lebanon.
“Enemy warplanes launched nighttime strikes on the towns of Srifa, Aita al-Shaab, Touline, Sawana and Majdal Selm,” the official National News Agency (NNA) reported.
Another strike targeted the eastern Lebanese town of Dours at dawn, the NNA said.
Hezbollah’s message to evacuate the border areas came less than a day after Israel threatend residents to leave Beirut’s southern suburbs, prompting a huge exodus from a swathe of the capital’s densely populated southern suburbs known as Dahiyeh, where some half a million people live.
The Israeli army said it has conducted 26 rounds of strikes in Dahiyeh. It claims to have targeted various infrastructure used by Hezbollah, including the headquarters of the group’s Executive Council and a warehouse with drones.
“Your military’s aggression against Lebanese sovereignty and safe citizens, the destruction of civilian infrastructure and the expulsion campaign it is carrying out will not go unchallenged,” Hezbollah said.
Hezbolla claimed responsibility for a wave of attacks early on Friday targeting Israeli ground forces, including those who have entered Lebanon’s territory in recent days.
In a statement on Telegram, Hezbollah said that its fighters had targeted Israeli forces in several areas, including Maroun al-Ras and Kfar Kila, already within Lebanese territory.
Hezbollah also targeted Israel’s Yoav military camp in the occupied Golan Heights and a navy base in Israel’s Haifa port, the statement said.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Israel has said it will not evacuate its border towns and has sent more soldiers into Lebanon, claiming it was a defensive measure meant to protect its citizens who live nearby.
In contrast, tens of thousands of people have fled their homes after threats from Israel, with a mass exodus from Beirut’s southern suburbs leaving the area “almost empty”, the National News Agency said.
Hundreds of displaced families were left to seek shelter on a Beirut beach, where they waited despondently – many for the second time, after evacuating during a 2024 war between Israel and Hezbollah.
‘We are not animals’
Zeina Khodr, reporting from Beirut, said the humanitarian crisis is growing rapidly, as people seeking shelter can be seen “on the side of the roads on almost every corner”.
“There aren’t enough schools to shelter the hundreds of thousands of people who were forced to flee their homes after Israel’s forced displacement threat for Beirut’s southern suburbs yesterday,” she said.
“People are telling us: ‘We are not animals, we are human beings, our children are cold’.”
She noted that the Lebanese government has opened a number of shelters and told people to head to the north of the country.
Khodr added: “But many do not have any means of transport. It’s not just Lebanese who live in Beirut’s southern suburbs, but also Syrian refugees and Palestinian refugees.”
Lebanon was pulled into the war in the Middle East on Monday, as Hezbollah opened fire, sparking Israeli air strikes focused on Beirut’s southern suburbs and on southern and eastern Lebanon.
The war has rekindled fighting between Israel and Iran-allied Hezbollah fighters, and Israel launched a series of air strikes late on Thursday into Friday in the southern suburbs of Beirut and other areas.
