Israel strikes Beirut, south Lebanon

Israel's military urged residents of more than 20 towns in south Lebanon to evacuate their homes immediately yesterday as it pressed on with incursions after suffering its worst losses in a year of fighting the Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah.

The latest warnings took the number of southern towns subject to evacuation calls to 70 and included the provincial capital Nabatieh, suggesting another Israeli operation that could lead thousands more Lebanese to flee.

More than 1.2 million Lebanese have already been displaced by Israeli attacks.

The Lebanese army said two soldiers were killed by Israeli strikes in separate incidents in south Lebanon yesterday, one in an attack on a military post and another in a strike on a rescue mission with the Lebanese Red Cross.

The army said that it returned fire when the military post was struck, a rare development for a force that has historically stayed on the sidelines of major conflict with Israel.

In Beirut's southern suburb known as Dahiye, a dense neighborhood where Hezbollah holds sway, several explosions were heard yesterday and several large plumes of smoke were rising after heavy Israeli strikes.

Hezbollah said it detonated an improvised explosive device against Israeli forces infiltrating a southern Lebanese village and attacked Israeli forces near the border.

The Iran-backed group also fired a barrage of rockets at the Israeli city of Tiberias in response to the Israeli bombardment of Lebanese "towns, villages and civilians".  

Israel's military said it had hit Hezbollah's intelligence headquarters in the Lebanese capital.

Nearly 2,000 people have been killed, including 127 children, and 9,384 injured since the start of the Israeli attacks on Lebanon over the last year, the country's health minister Firass Abiad said yesterday. Most of the deaths occurred in the last two weeks.

Overnight, Israel bombed central Beirut in an attack the Lebanese health ministry said killed nine people.

Reuters witnesses reported hearing a massive blast, which targeted a building in the district of Bachoura a few hundred meters from parliament, the closest an Israeli strike has come to the central downtown district.

A Hezbollah-linked civil defense group said seven of its staff, including two medics, had been killed in the Beirut attack.

Israel also said it struck a municipality building in the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil, killing 15 Hezbollah members and destroying many weapons.

A growing number of countries were evacuating citizens from Beirut as governments worldwide urged their citizens to get out.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, speaking at an event in Doha, said Iran would be ready to respond and warned against "silence" in the face of Israel's "warmongering".

Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani called for serious ceasefire efforts to stop Israel's "aggression" in Lebanon.