Women and children among more than 100 killed and 400 wounded in Lebanon by Israeli strikes.

By Guardian-Martin Belam/Tom Bryant /Adam Fulton - Mon 23 Sep 2024 13.33 BST

Women, children and paramedics among more than 100 killed and 400 wounded by Israeli strikes on Lebanon, health ministry says. Israel claims to have struck 300 Hezbollah targets inside Lebanon

William Christou

More than 100 people have been killed and 400 wounded, “including women, children and paramedics”, from ongoing Israeli airstrikes in south Lebanon today, the country’s health ministry said. This is the single highest daily death toll since fighting between Israel and Hezbollah started in October.

Israel has claimed the attacks mounted in Lebanon today have been “extensive, proactive airstrikes, based on precise intelligence, aimed at degrading the capabilities and infrastructure of the Hezbollah terrorist organization in Lebanon.”

IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said “This is infrastructure that Hezbollah has built over many years. So far, since this morning, more than three hundred terrorist targets across Lebanon have been struck.”

Lebanon’s health ministry has said that at least 100 people have been killed and 400 people wounded, including women, children and medics.

Hagari told Israelis that “We are continuing to conduct a situational assessment regarding the home front, and at this stage, there is no change to the defensive guidelines. However, it is important to remain vigilant and alert.”

Hezbollah earlier today claimed a barrage of rockets fired into Israel were in response to the strikes on eastern Lebanon.

Hageri continued:

We are continuing to monitor Hezbollah’s preparations in the field in order to proactively thwart attacks against Israeli territory, and we are systematically broadening our strikes against Hezbollah. We are preparing to strike terrorist targets in the Beqaa valley region soon. Hezbollah stores strategic weapons in civilian buildings, knowingly using the population as human shields and endangering them. I urge the Lebanese residents of the villages in the Beqaa valley who are inside or near houses where rockets and weapons are stored, to move away immediately.

Lebanon to open schools as emergency shelters amid 'heavy displacement' of population caused by Israeli airstrikes

Responding to the displacement of people after Israel launched a string of airstrikes on southern and eastern Lebanon leading to at least 100 deaths and hundreds more being injured, Lebanon’s interior ministry has opened schools in Beirut, Tripoli and in the east and the south to act as temporary refugee shelters. Heavy traffic and chaotic scenes have been reported as people try to flee.

Thousands of people have already been displaced from their homes in southern Lebanon and northern Israel after months of fire being exchanged by Israel and Hezbollah since the 7 October attack last year.

Israel’s army radio reports that the IDF have published an Arabic language map identifying the area in Lebanon it is attacking, and ordering Lebanese citizens to evacuate their homes.

Israel’s Channel 12 has spoken to Israeli Dudi Yitzhaki, who lives in the community settlement of Givat Avni in Galilee. He told the network he and his family were “30 seconds and three centimetres” from death after their home was struck by a Hezbollah rocket.

He said “I was in the middle of a work phone call outside when the siren started. I entered the house and went in the reinforced room. It was a matter of 30 seconds and then we heard an unbelievable explosion. I immediately realised it had hit the house.”

Earlier the IDF said it had repelled the majority of a barrage of approximately 35 projectiles fired towards Israel from Lebanon. Hezbollah, in a statement, claimed responsibility for the barrage, and said it was in response to Israeli strikes inside Lebanon.

Here is the quote, via Reuters and in translation, from IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari, who said “The sights now from south Lebanon are of secondary explosions of Hezbollah weapons, which are exploding inside houses. In every house we are attacking there are weapons. Rockets, missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles that were meant for and aimed at killing Israeli civilians.”

According to breaking news lines from the Reuters news agency, Israeli military spokesperson Rr Adm Daniel Hagari, in a Hebrew-language briefing, has claimed that houses struck by the IDF in Bekaa in Lebanon contained missiles and drones. He claimed Israel had only targeted houses that contained Hezbollah weapons, and that Israel intends to continue striking at strategic weapon stores. He said civilians in the Bekaa valley area should evacuate.

Lebanon’s health ministry has said at least 100 people have been killed and 400 wounded by Israeli strikes today in Lebanon, including women, children and medics. This adds to the dozens killed and thousands injured last week in Lebanon when pagers and walkie-talkies were detonated, in an attack widely attributed to an Israeli attempt to target Hezbollah operatives.

More details soon …

At least 41,455 Palestinians have been killed and 95,878 injured in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry has said in its latest daily update.

Residents from south Lebanon flee north following Israeli barrage

William Christou. William Christou reports from Beirut for the Guardian

Residents of south Lebanon have begun fleeing north in a renewed wave of displacement as Israeli warplanes pound wide-swathes of the country’s south.

The Israeli aerial assault is the most intense yet, killing over 100 people and wounding over 400 more, including women, children and paramedics, the Lebanese Health Ministry said on Monday.

Roads leading out of south Lebanon were choked with traffic as people fled the Israeli bombing. Areas that have served as safe zones for the displaced since last year have now found themselves within the crosshairs of the Israeli military.

“The airstrikes have reached us, on the outskirts of [Tyre]. There was a strike just 100 meters behind the [displacement] center, there were three of them,” Bilal Kashmar, a coordinator in a displacement center in the southern city of Tyre, said. He showed a video of a plume of smoke rising just across the street from the shelter which houses hundreds of families.

“The displaced have stopped coming to us, those that want to flee are leaving the south entirely,” Kashmar said.

Tyre has hosted thousands of individuals displaced by fighting, as the city has largely been spared by airstrikes until now. Prior to Monday’s fighting, a little over 110,000 were displaced from south Lebanon.

“The airstrikes aren’t stopping. People are scared,” Hassan Dabouk, the head of the Tyre Union of Municipalities, said.

Videos of collapsed buildings, bombs falling from the sky and resulting explosions that shook camera-people’s hands circulated on social media as people tried to track the extent of Israel’s bombing campaign. In one video, a driver films as smoke fills the air on the road ahead following a strike. “Stop, stop, stop!” One of the passengers yell as the video cuts.

“An important thing to note is that the roads are not safe. There is bombing from where we are [in Tyre] all the way to Saida. One needs to think before they leave in this situation,” Dabouk said.

Those who have loved ones in the south made public appeals for any empty apartments or rooms that might host their family members who fled Israeli airstrikes. Spontaneous initiatives to provide housing emerged, with individuals marshaling calls for available rooms and hostels offering discounted rates for displaced people.

“We are collecting numbers right now from people that have connections in safe areas, in Druze and Christian areas”, Faten Jebai, a journalist from south Lebanon, said. Jebai has urged those without a place to reach out to her, as she and other volunteers work to connect displaced those who will open up their homes or rent at low prices.

“More than 80 members of my family are now leaving the south, so I am searching for them but also for my friends and friends of the family,” Jebai added.

Israeli airstrikes are 'a genocide in every sense of the word' says Lebanon caretaker prime minister

Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister has called Israel’s wave of airstrikes “a genocide in every sense of the word.”

Najib Mikati made the comments at the start of a cabinet meeting in Beirut on Monday in which he said that Israel’s airstrikes aim to destroy Lebanon’s towns and villages, according to an update from the Associated Press news agency.

Mikati said that the Lebanese government is calling on the United Nations, the UN Security Council and world nations to “deter the aggression.”

Women, children and paramedics among more than 100 killed and 400 wounded by Israeli strikes on Lebanon, health ministry says

William Christou.

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