Lebanon’s health ministry said on Tuesday that 558 of its citizens have been killed and 1,835 injured in Israeli airstrikes in the southern part of the country since Sunday, Al Jazeera reported. More than 90 women and children were among the dead.
Thousands of Lebanese citizens are fleeing the southern part of the country amid what is said to be the deadliest bombardment the country has faced since the 2006 war between Israel and the militant group Hezbollah, according to the AP.
Hezbollah responded by firing missiles at Israeli air bases, even as world leaders and the United Nations called for restraint.
Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged near-daily strikes for the past 10 months amid Tel Aviv’s war on the besieged Palestinian enclave of Gaza. Hezbollah is an ally of Hamas.
The ongoing bombardment in Lebanon is seen as a significant escalation of geopolitical tensions in West Asia.
Israel’s military offensive against Gaza began on October 7 after Hamas launched an incursion into southern Israel, killing 1,200 persons and taking over 200 hostages. Israel has been carrying out unprecedented air and ground strikes on Gaza since then. The attacks have killed more than 40,000 persons, including 16,500 children.
The Israeli military claimed on Tuesday that its airstrikes in Lebanon were aimed at targeting Hezbollah’s infrastructure. It said that the strikes were setting off secondary explosions, claiming this was proof that there were weapons in some of the buildings.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged civilians in Lebanon to heed calls to evacuate their homes, AP reported. He alleged that Hezbollah was using them as human shields and urged them to vacate areas where Israel was carrying out military operations.
“Please get out of harm’s way now,” Netanyahu said. “Once our operation is finished, you can come back safely to your homes.”
However, Al Jazeera reported that Israel gave only minutes to civilians in southern Lebanon to evacuate before launching air strikes.
The United Nations’ human rights chief Volker Turk called on anyone with influence in West Asia to take steps to prevent further escalation, Reuters reported.
Matthew Saltmarsh, the spokesperson for the United Nations’ refugee agency, said that more people were expected to flee their homes in the coming days and that the agency was trying to identify new shelters near the capital city of Beirut and in the Bekaa Valley to accommodate them.
“The situation is extremely alarming,” he said. “It’s very chaotic, and we are doing what we can to support the government.”
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