Israeli airstrikes kill nearly 200 in Lebanon, citizens told to evacuate

Israel attacked hundreds of Hizbollah targets on Monday in airstrikes which Lebanese health authorities said killed at least 182 people, making it the deadliest day in Lebanon.

After some of the heaviest cross-border exchanges of fire since the hostilities flared, Israel warned people to evacuate areas where it said the armed movement was storing weapons.

The Israeli strikes killed 274 people in Lebanon, including 21 children and 39 women, Health Minister Firass Abiad said, adding about 5,000 people had been wounded since last Tuesday.

At a press conference in Beirut, Abiad said thousands of families have been displaced by the attacks. He also said Israeli strikes have hit hospitals, medical centers and ambulances.

After almost a year of war against Hamas in Gaza on its southern border, Israel is shifting its focus to its northern frontier, from where Hizbollah has been firing rockets into Israel in support of its ally Hamas.

Israel's military on Monday targeted Hizbollah in Lebanon's south, eastern Bekaa valley and northern region near Syria in its most widespread strikes.

The Israeli military said late on Monday that air strikes in Lebanon hit more than 1,100 targets of Hizbollah in the previous 24 hours. The strikes hit "over 1,100 targets," a military statement said, specifying that they included "buildings, vehicles, and infrastructure where rockets, missiles, launchers and unmanned aerial vehicles posed a threat."

CALL FOR URGENT MEETING

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani on Monday called for an urgent meeting of Arab leaders on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly after Israel intensified its strikes on Lebanon.

Iraq "calls on and works to convene an urgent meeting of the leaders of Arab delegations... to review the repercussions of the Zionist (Israeli) aggression on our peaceful people in Lebanon and to work jointly to stop its criminal behaviour," Sudani said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Egypt's foreign ministry also called on "international powers and the United Nations Security Council to intervene immediately" to stop "the dangerous Israeli escalation in Lebanon."

Turkey also warned that Israel's attacks on Lebanon threatened to push the Middle East deeper into "chaos."

Earlier, Israel's Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said the actions would continue until "we achieve our goal to return the northern residents safely to their homes," setting the stage for a long conflict as Hizbollah has vowed to fight on until there is a ceasefire in Gaza.

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani condemned the Israeli strikes. "There will be dangerous consequences to the new adventure of the Zionists," he said.

Imad Kreidieh, the head of Lebanese telecoms company Ogero, told Reuters on Monday that more than 80,000 automated calls asking people to evacuate their areas were detected on the network. Not all were answered. Lebanon's Interior Minister Bassam Al Mawlawi opened schools in Beirut, the northern city of Tripoli and in the south as shelters amid "heavy displacement" of citizens, his office said in a statement. Evacuation calls have been received on phones as far as the Lebanese capital, Beirut.

'PSYCHOLOGICAL WAR'

Lebanon's Information Minister Ziad Makary said his ministry had received a call ordering the building to evacuate, but said the ministry would do no such thing. "This is a psychological war," Makary told Reuters.

Suffering from a financial meltdown, Lebanon can ill afford to face another war like the one that erupted in 2006, when Israel pounded the country during a month-long conflict with Hizbollah, inflicting heavy damage to infrastructure.

In the eastern Beirut district of Sassine, state employee Joseph Ghafary said he feared that Hizbollah would respond to Israel's intensified strikes and that a full-blown war would break out.

"If Hizbollah carries out a major operation, Israel will respond and destroy more than this. We can't bear it," he said.

"Israel wants to strike, it wants to keep going, meaning it is squeezing Sayyed Hassan (Nasrallah) to start a war. It is definitely dangerous."

Mohammed Sibai, a shopowner in the Beirut neighbourhood of Hamra, told Reuters that he saw the escalation in strikes as "the beginning of the war." "If they want war, what can we do? It was imposed on us. We cannot do anything," he said. Asked whether Hizbollah can be defeated from the air or if ground operations will also be required, Hagari said: "We have a full plan that has been presented. Today we are mounting a widescale aerial operation. We will continue to act according to plan. We have one mission - to return the residents in the north safely."

MORE US TROOPS

The US is sending additional troops to the Middle East in response to a sharp spike in violence between Israel and Hizbollah forces in Lebanon that has raised the risk of a greater regional war, the Pentagon said on Monday.

Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder would provide no details on how many additional forces or what they would be tasked to do. The US currently has about 40,000 troops in the region.

Agencies