Lebanese authorities announced at least 492 people have been killed and tens of thousands have fled for safety after Israel launched hundreds of airstrikes on Monday.
Families from south Lebanon loaded cars, vans and trucks with belongings and people, sometimes multiple generations in one vehicle. As bombs rained down, children crammed onto parents’ laps and suitcases were tied to car roofs.
Highways north were gridlocked. “I grabbed all the important papers and we got out. Strikes all around us. It was terrifying,” said Abed Afou, who was with his family, including three sons aged 6 to 13 and several other relatives. They sat in traffic as it crawled north.
They did not know where they would stay, he said, but just wanted to reach Beirut.
The Lebanese minister coordinating the crisis response, Nasser Yassin, told Reuters 89 temporary shelters in schools and other facilities had been activated, with capacity for more than 26,000 people as civilians fled “Israeli atrocities”.
After almost a year of war against Hamas in Gaza on its southern border, Israel is shifting its focus to the northern frontier, where Iran-backed Hezbollah has been firing rockets into Israel in support of Hamas, also backed by Iran.
Israel’s military said it struck Hezbollah in Lebanon’s south, east and north, including, “launchers, command posts and terrorist infrastructure.” The Israeli Air Force struck about 1,600 Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, it said.
Lebanon’s health ministry said at least 492 people had been killed, including 35 children, and 1,645 wounded. One Lebanese official said it was Lebanon’s highest daily death toll from violence since the 1975-1990 civil war.
The fighting has raised fears that the US, Israel’s close ally, and Iran will be sucked into a wider war.
Saudi Arabia expressed deep concern on Monday and urged all parties to exercise restraint, state news agency SPA reported.
A senior US State Department official said the United States did not support a cross-border escalation between Israel and Hezbollah and that Washington was going to discuss “concrete ideas” with allies and partners to prevent the war from broadening.
Israeli officials have said the recent uptick in airstrikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon is designed to force the Iran-aligned group to agree to a diplomatic solution.
The US official, briefing reporters in New York on condition of anonymity, pushed back on the Israeli position, saying the Biden administration was focused on, “reducing tensions … and breaking the cycle of strike-counterstrike.”
Also in New York, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Israel wanted to drag the Middle East into a full-blown war by provoking Iran to join the Israel-Hezbollah conflict.
“It is Israel that seeks to create this all-out conflict,” he told journalists after his arrival to attend the U.N. General Assembly, saying the consequences of such instability would be irreversible.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Monday marked a “significant peak” in the nearly year-long conflict.
