Hundreds of families sheltering in the streets and fleeing after Israeli attacks in Lebanon
The dawn was marked by intense attacks by Israel in the suburbs of southern Lebanon, a stronghold of Hezbollah, which only stopped at sunrise. Hundreds of families fled their homes in the middle of the night and sought refuge in the streets of Beirut and by the sea.
The scenario is described by correspondents from the French agency AFP, who say they have seen entire families sitting on the floor all night,following an evacuation warning issued by Israel on Friday for several neighborhoods. A few kilometers away, displaced people were dragging bags or bundles. In network X, Zeina Khodr, Al-Jazeera’s correspondent in Lebanon’s capital, even spoke of a “mass displacement crisis” after the attacks.
This Saturday morningseveral buildings were still burning and the sky was covered in thick clouds of smoke. The al-Manar television channel, close to the armed Islamist movement Hezbollah, broadcast videos this morning showing multi-story buildings razed to the ground.
The number of deaths and the extent of the damage caused by these intense nighttime attacks, the most violent since 2006, are not yet known. The Lebanese Ministry of Health presented a provisional toll of six deaths and 91 injuries, which is expected to increase. It announced that it was moving patients from hospitals in the southern suburbs to other establishments “not affected by Israeli aggression”.
In a post on the social network X, the Israel Defense Forces announced the death of the commander of Hezbollah’s missile unit in southern Lebanon, Muhammed Ali Ismail, by Air Force jets. “And several terrorists were eliminated with them”, they add.The Israeli army claims to be targeting residential buildings that allegedly house Hezbollah weapons depots.
Following the bombings, Lebanon’s Ministry of Health announced this Saturday that hospitals in the southern suburbs of Beirut will be evacuated, asking other hospitals in unaffected areas to reject non-urgent cases, “in order to create space to receive patients displaced from closed units”.
