Beirut, Lebanon:

According to the Lebanese Health Ministry, 100 people, including children, were killed in Israeli attacks on Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon on Monday. It was the largest cross-border escalation since the war in the Gaza Strip began on October 7.

The war began when the Palestinian Hamas carried out the worst attack on Israel in history and Iranian-backed groups in the region, especially Hezbollah, became increasingly drawn into the violence.

On Monday, Israel said it had hit more than 300 Hezbollah sites in dozens of attacks, while Hezbollah said it had targeted three sites in northern Israel.

The attacks on Lebanon, which also injured more than 400 people according to the Health Ministry, were the deadliest in the nearly year-long violence along the border with Israel.

“100 people have been killed and over 400 injured in enemy attacks on towns and villages in the south since this morning,” the Health Ministry said in a statement. The dead and injured also included “children, women and paramedics.”

World powers have urged Israel and Hezbollah to refrain from open war. In recent days, the focus of violence has shifted from Israel’s southern front in the Gaza Strip to its northern border with Lebanon.

“We fall asleep and wake up under bombardment… This is what our life has become,” says Wafaa Ismail, 60, a housewife from the southern Lebanese village of Zawtar.

More to follow

Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari urged the people of Lebanon to avoid potential targets with links to Hezbollah, as the attacks would “continue in the near future.”

Hagari said the Israeli military would carry out “more extensive and precise attacks against terror targets scattered throughout Lebanon.”

He called on civilians to “leave the danger zone immediately for their own safety.”

Hezbollah, a powerful political and military force in Lebanon, says it supports its Palestinian ally Hamas, which is also backed by Iran, in its fight along Lebanon’s southern border with Israel.

In divided Lebanon, large parts of the south and east, as well as the southern suburbs of the capital Beirut, are considered Hezbollah strongholds, where the group has historically exerted great influence and built up services for its Shiite voter base.

Another Gaza?

Ahead of the annual General Assembly in New York, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that Lebanon could become a “second Gaza”. He said it was “clear that both sides are not interested in a ceasefire”.

The official Lebanese news agency reported early Monday of “more than 80 air strikes within half an hour” on the south of the country as well as intensive attacks on the Bekaa Valley in the east.

The Education Minister said schools in selected areas would be closed for two days.

Explosions around the ancient city of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon triggered flashes of fire and sent smoke into the sky.

The Israeli military announced on Monday that it would launch “large-scale” attacks in the Bekaa Valley in the east of the country and warned residents of the region to stay away from Hezbollah bases there.

“Evacuate quickly”

Residents and local media reported that attacks also took place in the outskirts of the coastal city of Tyre.

According to NNA, the Lebanese received telephone messages from Israel urging them to “evacuate quickly.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel had dealt Hezbollah “a series of blows that it could never have imagined.” But the Israeli leadership stressed that it wanted a safe return of its residents to the border areas.

Hezbollah’s deputy leader, Naim Qassem, said the group was in a “new phase, namely an open reckoning” with Israel and was ready to use “all military means”.

Both spoke after Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israel caused destruction in the area of ​​Haifa, a major city on Israel’s northern coast.

Since the cross-border clashes between Israel and Hezbollah began in October, tens of thousands of people on both sides have fled their homes.

An Israeli military official, whose identity cannot be disclosed due to military regulations, outlined the objectives of the military operation on Monday.

The aim is to “weaken” the Hezbollah threat, push it back from the border and then destroy the infrastructure built near the border by Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, the official said.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati called on the UN and world powers to stop Israel from its “plan to destroy Lebanese villages and cities.”

“More comprehensive war”

US President Joe Biden, whose country is Israel’s main ally and arms supplier, said his administration would “do everything in its power to prevent the outbreak of a major war”.

An Israeli airstrike on the Hezbollah stronghold in southern Beirut on Friday killed the commander of the Radwan Force, Ibrahim Aqil, as well as other commanders and civilians.

Coordinated explosions of communications equipment occurred on Tuesday and Wednesday, killing 39 people and injuring nearly 3,000. Hezbollah blamed Israel.

Hezbollah said it attacked Israeli arms production facilities and an air force base in the Haifa area with rockets on Sunday as a “first response”.

On Monday, the group said it had again attacked the “Rafael defense industrial complex” near Haifa and two military positions with rockets.

“No country can live like this,” says Ofer Levy, a 56-year-old customs officer who lives on the outskirts of Haifa.

The Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 killed 1,205 people, most of them civilians, according to a count by the AFP news agency, which is based on official Israeli figures and includes hostages killed in captivity.

Of the 251 hostages also kidnapped by militants, 97 are still being held in Gaza, including 33 who the Israeli military says are dead.

At least 41,431 people have died in Israel’s military retaliation offensive in Gaza, most of them civilians. This is according to the Health Ministry of the Hamas-controlled area. The UN described the figures as reliable.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)