Fresh Israeli strikes hit Dahiyeh and South after evacuation warnings
Fresh Israeli strikes hit Beirut's southern suburbs and south Lebanon on Tuesday after the Israeli army warned people to evacuate, with Lebanese authorities saying nearly 760,000 people had been registered as displaced.
Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East war last week when Iran-backed Hezbollah attacked Israel in response to the killing of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in U.S.-Israeli strikes.
Israel, which kept up strikes targeting Hezbollah despite a 2024 ceasefire, has since launched new waves of attacks across Lebanon and sent ground troops into border areas.
Lebanon's state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported several strikes Tuesday on the capital's southern suburbs, where Hezbollah holds sway.
AFPTV footage showed smoke rising from the area, while the Israeli military said it had begun "striking Hezbollah infrastructure" there.
In Lebanon's south, the NNA said "the Israeli enemy launched a strike" in Abbassiyeh, near Tyre, after the Israeli military said it would strike a building there and in the coastal city of Sidon.
It also reported strikes in other areas of the south.
Hezbollah said in a statement that its fighters had repeatedly attacked Israeli troops near the southern town of Khiam.
Lebanese authorities have said Israel's attacks since March 2 have killed at least 486 people and wounded more than 1,300 others.
Authorities said Tuesday that 759,300 people had been registered as displaced, with 122,600 of them staying in shelters.
The Hezbollah-affiliated Islamic Health Committee said 15 of its rescuers had been killed in Israeli attacks since March 2.
- 'Starting from zero' -
Among those taking refuge in Beirut's Camille Chamoun Sports City Stadium, which has been turned into a shelter, was Fatima Shehadeh, 35, a mother of four who fled the southern suburbs last week.
"I was pushing my baby in a stroller. We left on foot at 2:00 am and spent the night outside" before coming to the shelter, she said.
She expressed worry about the impact of Israeli raids on her children, one of whom hid inside their tent a day earlier in fear.
"He didn't come out because of the strikes. They were really close," she said.
Dozens of family-sized tents have been set up inside the stadium, with people sleeping inside on thin mattresses on the concrete floor.
Beirut mayor Ibrahim Zeidan said the site could shelter more than 3,000 people.
Malak Jaber, 35, a mother of three from south Lebanon's Nabatiyeh, said: "We spent two or three days living under a bridge, until they opened up this place."
"My home was bombed yesterday," she said. "If I want to go back... we'll be starting from zero."
The United Nations earlier Tuesday said it noted "a faster pace of displacement compared to 2024", during Israel's last war with Hezbollah.
Meanwhile, President Joseph Aoun's office said that he and his Syrian counterpart Ahmed al-Sharaa had agreed on the need to control their shared border after Syria accused Hezbollah of firing artillery shells into its territory overnight.
A day earlier, Aoun accused Hezbollah of working to "collapse" the state and expressed Beirut's readiness for "direct negotiations" with Israel.
The head of the Iran-backed group's parliamentary bloc Mohammad Raad had vowed that his group would "defend our existence whatever the cost".
Also Tuesday, the last residents of the Christian village of Alma al-Shaab near the Israeli border fled, according to a U N. source, the mayor and an AFP correspondent, after locals had for days defied an Israeli order to leave.
Source: Agence France Presse
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