An unprecedented wave of Israeli bombings in Lebanon has killed more than 100 people in just a few hours on Monday, including an undetermined number of children, women and health workers, and injured around 300, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health. This represents, in a single day, the same number of deaths that have been recorded on average in the country every two months since the beginning of the clashes in October 2023. It is an increase in intensity by Israel that places it on the level of its invasion of Gaza. The army has also ordered on Monday the population of Lebanon in the areas where it is intensifying the bombings on Hezbollah targets to leave them “immediately”.
“If you are located in a building that can be used by Hezbollah, you must leave the village and not return until you receive another message,” the Israeli military said in Arabic, from a Lebanese number. There have been as many as 80,000 calls, according to the telecommunications company Ogero. It is the same strategy that the troops have imposed on the population of the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the war almost a year ago.
On Monday morning alone, the air force has bombed more than 300 targets in Lebanese territory, military sources say. Israeli fighter jets are targeting mainly southern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley, and further north, around the border with Syria.
The images of the attacks and the locations they have reached show their intensity, unprecedented since the first clashes in October 2023, and with Hezbollah decimated by last week’s attacks. Both sides are already talking about a “new phase of the war.” Of the dozens of projectiles that Hezbollah has launched in recent hours, some have managed to hit northeastern Israel, although the authorities have not reported any casualties.
“We are expecting the hacking of platforms and channels, as part of psychological warfare,” Lebanese Communications Minister Ziad Makary said at a press conference. Israeli military spokesmen have issued messages in Hebrew and Arabic on social media calling on the Lebanese to leave places that could be considered military targets. They are seeking the widest possible dissemination and impact. “Residents of Lebanese villages, attacks are imminent: Immediately evacuate the houses where Hezbollah has hidden weapons! Hezbollah is lying to you and slaughtering you. Hezbollah says that you are its entourage and that you are its people, but it seems that its rockets and drones are more precious and more important to them than you,” said Avichay Adraee, an Arabic-speaking spokesman for the Israeli army in a message via X (formerly Twitter).
Tensions have soared between the two countries following a frenzied week of attacks in Lebanon that have left dozens dead and thousands injured. Hundreds of searches and seizures broke out between Tuesday and Wednesday. walkie talkies Hezbollah’s men use it to communicate, an operation attributed to Israel’s foreign secret service, the Mossad. Later, on Friday, an Israeli bombing in Beirut killed a senior commander of the Lebanese militia, Ibrahim Aqil, and about fifty people, including other members of the group. Hezbollah, through its top leader, Hassan Nasrallah, promised a “just punishment” and challenged Israel to invade Lebanon, but admitted the unprecedented gravity of the blow for the organization.
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On September 15, leaflets similar to those dropped by the army over Gaza appeared in southern Lebanon. It was the first time this had happened and shortly afterwards the Israeli army said it was not carrying out any operation to evacuate the Lebanese population. It added that an investigation had been opened after one of its units had proceeded to disperse the notices without authorization. By then, their publication had spread like wildfire in the media and on social networks.
With announcements like the one on Monday, Israel is deploying in the neighbouring country the same strategy that it has implemented in Gaza since the beginning of the current war on 7 October. Around 2.3 million people live in the Strip and the vast majority have had to leave on one or more occasions. International Humanitarian Law expressly prohibits this type of forced mobilisation, even if its purpose is to attack places where armed militants are located, as Israel justifies. Despite its insistence that its target in Gaza is Hamas, the majority of the more than 41,000 dead in the last eleven months are women and children, according to health sources in the Strip, where the Islamist group governs.
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