Israel has conducted at least four airstrikes on the historic Lebanese port city of Tyre, hours after broadening its evacuation orders to include several central neighborhoods, Lebanon’s state news agency reports.
Videos showed large clouds of black smoke rising from a seafront area that is just a few hundred meters from a Unesco World Heritage-listed Roman ruins. There have been no immediate reports of any casualties.
The Israeli military previously cautioned civilians to evacuate, stating it would take “forceful” action against the armed group Hezbollah in the area.
Tens of thousands of residents had already left the city in recent weeks in response to Israel’s intense air campaign and ground invasion.
However, before the airstrikes began, a spokesperson for a disaster management unit mentioned that around 14,000 people were still residing in the city, including those who had been displaced from other parts of the south.
“It could be said that the entire city of Tyre is being evacuated,” Bilal Kashmar told AFP news agency, noting that many individuals were moving towards the suburbs.
During the night, Lebanese media reported that Israeli aircraft carried out multiple strikes on the southern suburbs of the capital Beirut, southern Lebanon, and the Bekaa Valley – all regions where Hezbollah is strongly present.
The Israeli military indicated that the strikes in Beirut targeted weapons storage and manufacturing facilities, as well as command centers belonging to Hezbollah.
The military also mentioned that it had eliminated the Hezbollah sector commanders for the southern areas of Jibchit, Jouaiya, and Qana in airstrikes over the past few days, and that its troops had killed about 70 Hezbollah fighters during operations within southern Lebanon to dismantle the group’s infrastructure and weapons caches.
There has been no immediate response from Hezbollah.
Nevertheless, the group stated that its fighters had launched barrages of rockets into Israel on Wednesday, including one in the morning that targeted the Gilot intelligence base, located north of the central city of Tel Aviv.
Rocket alert sirens sounded in Tel Aviv, leading senior US officials traveling with Secretary of State Antony Blinken to be escorted to a safe room in their hotel. It is unknown whether Blinken himself was also required to seek shelter.
Another rocket barrage hit two factory buildings in the northern Israeli towns of Acre and Kiryat Bialik, causing damage but no injuries.
Israel initiated its full-scale military campaign against Hezbollah after nearly a year of cross-border clashes triggered by the conflict in Gaza, stating it aimed to ensure the safe return of tens of thousands of residents of Israeli border areas displaced by rocket attacks.
Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel in support of Palestinians on 8 October 2023, the day after its ally Hamas carried out a deadly attack on Israel.
More than 2,500 individuals have died in Lebanon since then, including 1,900 in the past five weeks, according to the country’s health ministry. Israeli authorities report that 59 people have been killed in northern Israel and the occupied Golan Heights.