Lebanon says at least 492 killed in Israeli airstrikes

(Patria) - Israel launched airstrikes on Hezbollah targets yesterday, killing 492 people and sending tens of thousands fleeing, Reuters reported, citing Lebanese authorities.

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

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent a short video statement addressed to the Lebanese people.

“Israel’s war is not against you, but against Hezbollah. For too long, Hezbollah has used you as a human shield.”

People from southern Lebanon loaded cars, vans and trucks with belongings and people.
Highways to the north were blocked. Some people fled on foot. People carrying small bundles of belongings headed north to a beach near the Lebanese city of Tyre.

Nasser Yassin, the Lebanese minister coordinating the crisis response, said 89 temporary shelters in schools and other facilities had been activated, with a capacity for more than 26,000 people as civilians fled "Israeli atrocities".

After nearly a year of war against Hamas on its southern border in Gaza, Israel is shifting its focus to the northern border, where Iran-backed Hezbollah is firing rockets at Israel in support of Hamas. The Israeli military said it attacked Hezbollah in southern, eastern, and northern Lebanon.

Lebanon’s Ministry of Health said at least 492 people were killed, including 35 children, and 1,645 wounded. A Lebanese official said it was the largest daily death toll from violence in Lebanon since the civil war that lasted from 1975 to 1990.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Monday marked a "significant peak" in the nearly year-long conflict.

“Today we have taken tens of thousands of rockets and precision munitions out of commission. What Hezbollah built over twenty years since the Second Lebanon War has actually been destroyed by the IDF,” he said, referring to the Israel Defense Forces.

Last night, Israel launched an attack on the southern suburbs of Beirut, on Ali Karaki, Hezbollah’s head of the southern front. Hezbollah later said he was safe, after claims he had been killed. Hamas’s armed wing said its field commander in southern Lebanon, Mahmoud al Nader, was killed in an Israeli airstrike.

About 60,000 people have been evacuated from northern Israel due to cross-border fighting. Gallant said the campaign would continue until residents could return to their homes. Hezbollah, for its part, has vowed to fight until a ceasefire is reached in Gaza.

In response, Hezbollah said it had launched dozens of missiles at a military base in northern Israel. Sirens warning of Hezbollah rocket fire sounded across northern Israel, including the port city of Haifa and the northern part of the occupied West Bank, the military said.