Israel launched at least four airstrikes on Lebanon’s historic port city of Tire, hours after it expanded its evacuation orders to include several central neighborhoods, Lebanon’s state news agency said.
Videos showed huge clouds of black smoke rising from the sea just a few hundred meters away from the Roman ruins, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
The Israeli military had earlier warned civilians to leave, saying it would act “strongly” against the militant group Hezbollah there.
Tens of thousands of residents have already fled the city in recent weeks in response to Israel’s intense air campaign and ground invasion.
But a spokesman for the disaster management unit said before the strikes began that about 14,000 people, including those displaced from elsewhere in the south, were still living in the city.
“You could say the whole city of Tire is being evacuated,” Bilal Kashmar told the AFP news agency, with many heading for the suburbs.
Overnight, Lebanese media reported that Israeli planes carried out several strikes in the southern suburbs of the capital Beirut, south Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley – all areas where Hezbollah is strong.
The Israeli military said the strikes in Beirut targeted weapons storage and production facilities and command centers belonging to Hezbollah.
The military said airstrikes over the past few days had killed Hezbollah division commanders for the southern regions of Jipsid, Juwaya and Qana, and that its troops had killed about 70 Hezbollah fighters during operations inside southern Lebanon. Infrastructure and arms storage.
There was no immediate comment from Hezbollah.
However, the group said its fighters fired a barrage of rockets into Israel on Wednesday, including one in the morning that targeted the Kilot intelligence base north of the central city of Tel Aviv.
Rocket warning sirens sounded in Tel Aviv, prompting senior officials traveling with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to rush to a safe room in their hotel. It is not known whether or not Blinken forced himself to seek asylum.
Another rocket barrage hit two factory buildings in the northern Israeli cities of Acre and Kiryat Bialik, causing damage but no injuries.
Israel launched its full-scale military campaign against Hezbollah after nearly a year of cross-border fighting sparked by the war in Gaza, saying it wanted to ensure the safe return of tens of thousands of people living in Israeli border areas displaced by rocket attacks.
Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel in support of the Palestinians on October 8, 2023, the day after its ally Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel.
More than 2,500 people have been killed in Lebanon in the past five weeks, including 1,900, according to the country’s health ministry. Israeli officials say 59 people were killed in northern Israel and the occupied Golan Heights.
