Israeli strikes kill 492 in bloodiest day of Lebanon conflict since 2006 – The Denver Post

Authors: BASSAM HATOUM, MELANIE LIDMAN and BASSEM MROUE

MARJAYOUN, Lebanon (AP) — Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon on Monday killed more than 490 people, including more than 90 women and children, Lebanese authorities said, in the deadliest shelling since Israel’s 2006 war with Hezbollah. The Israeli military warned residents of southern and eastern Lebanon to evacuate ahead of the expanding air campaign against Hezbollah.

Thousands of Lebanese fled the south, and a major highway from the southern port city of Sidon was clogged with cars heading toward Beirut, the largest exodus since 2006.

Lebanon’s health ministry said the attacks killed 492 people, including 35 children and 58 women, and injured 1,645, a staggering single-day toll for a country still reeling from last week’s deadly attack on communications facilities.

In a recorded message, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged Lebanese civilians to heed Israeli calls to evacuate, saying “take this warning seriously.”

“Please move out of the way of danger now,” Netanyahu said. “When our operation is over, you will be able to return safely to your homes.”

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

Hagari said Monday’s sweeping airstrikes had caused significant damage to Hezbollah. He did not provide a timeline for the ongoing operation and said Israel was prepared to launch a ground invasion of Lebanon if necessary.

“We are not looking for wars. We are looking for ways to mitigate threats,” he said. “We will do whatever is necessary to accomplish that mission.”

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

The military said Israeli warplanes struck 1,600 Hezbollah targets on Monday, destroying cruise missiles, long- and short-range rockets and attack drones. The spokesman said many of them 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 that Hezbollah has some 150,000 rockets and missiles, including guided missiles and long-range projectiles that can strike anywhere in Israel.

Earlier Monday evening, the Israeli military said it had carried out a targeted attack in Beirut. It did not provide details. Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said three rockets hit the Beir al-Abed neighborhood in southern Beirut. Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television reported that six people were wounded.

Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said earlier strikes had hit hospitals, medical centers and ambulances. The government ordered schools and universities closed in much of the country and began preparing shelters for displaced people.

Some strikes hit residential areas in the southern and eastern Bekaa Valley. One hit a forested area as far away as Byblos, more than 80 miles (130 kilometers) from the border north of Beirut.

Israel said it was expanding airstrikes to cover 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.

Israeli army chief Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi said Israel was preparing the “next phases” of operations against Hezbollah and that its airstrikes were “proactive,” targeting Hezbollah infrastructure built over the past 20 years.

Halevi said the goal is to allow displaced Israelis to return to their homes in northern Israel.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah said it fired dozens of rockets into Israel, including at military bases. On a second day, it targeted facilities of the Haifa-based defense contractor Rafael.

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 on Sunday. Hezbollah fired some 150 rockets, missiles and drones into northern Israel in retaliation for attacks that killed a senior commander and dozens of fighters.

The increasingly frequent attacks and counterattacks have raised fears of all-out war, even as Israel battles Hamas in the Gaza Strip and tries to negotiate the release of many hostages taken in an Oct. 7 Hamas attack. Hezbollah has vowed to continue attacks in solidarity with Hamas, another Iranian-backed militant group.

A spokeswoman for President Joe Biden said the administration is concerned about the situation in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah and stressed that achieving a ceasefire between Israel and the Gaza Strip is key to easing tensions in the region.

“It is in everyone’s interest to resolve this quickly and diplomatically,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters traveling with Biden to New York, where he is scheduled to deliver his final address to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday.

A State Department official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity to discuss private diplomatic activities, said the U.S. and many other countries would like to create a “way out” for both Israel and Hezbollah to reduce tensions and prevent all-out war.

The U.S. has “concrete ideas” for restoring calm that it will present to allies and partners at the U.N. General Assembly this week, the official said. He declined to elaborate on what those “concrete ideas” are because he said they have not yet been presented to allies and partners in what he called a “stress test” of their likelihood of success.

Meanwhile, U.N. peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, near the border with Israel, have suspended patrols and remained at their bases “given the scale of the exchange of fire,” U.N. spokesman Stéphane Dujarric told reporters that U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres was “concerned” by the escalation of violence and the high number of civilian casualties reported in Lebanon.

The death toll on Monday far exceeded the number killed in the tragic 2020 Beirut port explosion, when hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate stored in a warehouse exploded, killing at least 218 people and injuring more than 6,000.

The Lebanese Ministry of Health has asked hospitals in southern Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley to postpone non-urgent surgeries to treat those injured in the “spreading Israeli aggression against Lebanon.”

On Monday, residents received text messages reading: “If you are in a building where Hezbollah weapons are stored, leave the village until further notice,” Lebanese media reported.

Lebanese Information Minister Ziad Makary said his office in Beirut received a recorded message telling people to leave the building.

“This is part of the psychological warfare waged by the enemy,” Makary said, calling on people “not to give this matter more attention than it deserves.”

Communities on both sides of the border have been almost completely depopulated due to almost daily exchanges of gunfire.

Israel has accused Hezbollah of turning entire communities in the south into militant bases, with hidden rocket launchers and other infrastructure. That could lead the Israeli military to carry out an especially heavy bombing campaign even if no ground forces intervene.

On Friday, an Israeli airstrike on the outskirts of Beirut killed a top Hezbollah military commander and more than a dozen fighters, as well as dozens of civilians, including women and children.

Last week, thousands of communication devices, used mainly by Hezbollah members, exploded in various parts of Lebanon, killing 39 people and wounding nearly 3,000, many of them civilians. Lebanon blamed Israel, but Israel has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility.

Hezbollah began firing into Israel the day after the Oct. 7 attack, saying it was trying to pressure Israeli forces to help Palestinian fighters in the Gaza Strip. Israel responded with airstrikes, and the conflict continued to escalate.

Hezbollah has vowed to continue attacks until a ceasefire is reached in Gaza, but as the anniversary of the end of the war approaches, that promise is looking increasingly unrealistic.

Hamas-led militants entered southern Israel on October 7, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping about 250. About 100 captives remain held in the Gaza Strip, a third of them presumed dead, after most of the rest were freed during a week-long ceasefire in November.

Israel’s offensive has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and fighters. It says women and children make up just over half of those killed. Israel says it has killed more than 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.

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Lidman reported from Jerusalem and Mroue from Beirut. Associated Press journalists Abby Sewell in Beirut; Matthew Lee and Aamer Madhani in New York; and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

Originally published: September 23, 2024 at 12:18 PM