Israeli strikes kill 492 in heaviest daily toll in Lebanon since 1975-90 civil war

At least 492 people have been killed and 1,645 injured, Lebanon’s health ministry has said, after a wave of Israeli airstrikes on alleged Hezbollah targets that left the country with its highest daily death toll since the end of the 1975-90 civil war.

Tens of thousands of people fled from south Lebanese towns and villages along the main road towards the capital, Beirut, in Israel’s most intense barrage in nearly a year of cross-border clashes, as sirens were also heard in the northern Israeli city of Haifa. The Lebanese health ministry said 35 children and 58 women were among those killed.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said the military was changing the “security balance” along its northern border. “I promised we would change the security balance, the balance of power in the north – and that is exactly what we are doing,” the Israeli prime minister told a security meeting on Monday.

The Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, said the Israeli military was preparing for the “next phases” in Lebanon, saying he would elaborate later. “Essentially, we are targeting combat infrastructure that Hezbollah has been building for the past 20 years. This is very significant,” he said.

The IDF said it had hit more than 1,300 Hezbollah targets in the previous 24 hours, in its biggest attack on the militant group since the Gaza war began last October, when Hezbollah began strikes in Israel in support of Hamas. Israel also carried out airstrikes in the Beqaa valley and its second airstrike on Beirut in a week, with what it said was a “limited” airstrike in the southern suburb of Dahieh. Israeli media reported that the target of the strike was Ali Karaki, Hezbollah’s number three military commander, although the group said he was in a safe location and unharmed by the attack.

About 35 rockets were meanwhile fired from Lebanon towards the Safed area of Israel, the Israel Defense Forces said, with some coming down in open areas close to the community of Ami’ad. (The Guardian)

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