Lebanese authorities say Israel’s attacks in Lebanon killed over 180 people: NPR

Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike in the Lebanese village of Khiam near the Lebanese-Israeli border on Monday.

Rabih Daher/AFP via Getty Images

Hide caption

Show/hide label

Rabih Daher/AFP via Getty Images

BEIRUT — Fighting on the Israeli-Lebanese border has escalated. According to Lebanese health authorities, more than 180 people were killed in Israeli attacks on Monday, mainly in southern Lebanon. It was one of the deadliest days of the almost year-long conflict in the region.

According to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, the victims of the Israeli border attacks in southern Lebanon included children, women and health workers.

Israel and the Iranian-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah have carried out numerous attacks across the border since the Gaza war began in October last year. Hezbollah’s leadership says it is acting in solidarity with the Palestinians and the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza.

The Israeli military says it is battling Hezbollah, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, to prevent an attack in northern Israel similar to the October 7 Hamas-led attack in southern Israel. Israel says it wants to weaken Hezbollah’s rocket-firing capabilities, drive Hezbollah fighters away from the border and allow Israeli families who have evacuated the northern region to return home, NPR’s Daniel Estrin reported. Morning edition.

The Israeli military said its forces struck more than 300 targets, many of them Hezbollah weapons depots. The attacks damaged several buildings in populated areas in southern Lebanon and further east in the Bekaa Valley. However, at least one attack struck about 130 kilometers north of the border near the city of Byblos, Lebanese state radio reported.

Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets at Israel in recent days after thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies exploded last week, killing dozens of people and wounding thousands more, mostly in Lebanon. Israel has not publicly acknowledged its involvement in the explosions, but a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly told NPR that Israel had informed Washington that it carried out last Tuesday’s attacks in Lebanon.

Hezbollah’s leadership said in a statement Monday that it had fired dozens of rockets at an Israeli military post in northern Israel. Residents of the town of Nazareth told NPR it was a “scary night” until the early hours of the morning, with “rockets and intercepts overhead all night.”

Israeli authorities acknowledge that there have been repeated air raid sirens in the north of the country, indicating rocket fire from Lebanon.

At least 50 Hezbollah fighters and civilians, including children, were killed in an airstrike over the Lebanese capital Beirut on Friday. The Israeli military said the attack targeted a high-ranking Hezbollah commander.

In villages and towns in southern Lebanon, residents have migrated to safer areas away from the border. A few months ago, Israeli military officials urged residents of communities on the Israeli side of the border to evacuate as well, as fighting and mutual rocket attacks increased.

Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari warned people in southern and eastern Lebanon to leave their homes as airstrikes on Hezbollah fighters and positions continued to escalate.

According to local Lebanese media, residents in the southern regions of the country received messages in Arabic instructing them to stay away from known Hezbollah weapons depots, leading to a large wave of migration within Lebanon.

From the southern city of Sidon in the north up to the coast towards Beirut, the main road was packed with cars, even though Israeli air strikes have hit dozens of kilometers of Lebanese territory.

Lebanese Information Minister Ziad Makary criticized the evacuation warnings, which he said even his ministry had received, and called them “part of the Israeli enemy’s psychological intimidation campaign.”

Willem Marx wrote from London and Jane Arraf reported from Beirut. Daniel Estrin contributed reporting from Haifa, Israel.