Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee said on Monday that airstrikes on houses in Lebanon in which “Hezbollah hid weapons” are imminent, as the defense minister said attacks on the armed group would deepen, calling on Israelis to show composure.
Earlier, residents of southern Lebanon received calls from a Lebanese number ordering them to immediately distance themselves 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) from any post used by Hezbollah, a Reuters reporter in the south, who received the call, said.
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In a televised statement earlier, the Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari issued a similar warning and said it was being “distributed in Arabic on all networks and platforms in Lebanon.”
The Israeli military, meanwhile, launched its most widespread wave of airstrikes against Iran-backed Hezbollah in nearly a year of conflict, simultaneously targeting Lebanon’s south, eastern Bekaa valley and northern region near Syria.
Asked by reporters about a possible Israeli ground incursion into Lebanon, Hagari said “we will do whatever is needed” in order to return evacuated residents of northern Israel to their homes safely, a war priority for the Israeli government.
The latest attacks came amid some of the heaviest cross-border exchanges of fire in a conflict raging alongside the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
Hagari said that Hezbollah over the years has stashed weapons, including cruise missiles, in houses and buildings throughout southern Lebanon, and called on residents to stay away from these sites.
Hagari presented in a media briefing an aerial video of what he described as Hezbollah operatives trying to launch cruise missiles from a civilian house in Lebanon, and the subsequent Israeli strike moments before it was launched.
“Hezbollah is endangering you. Endangering you and your families,” Hagari said.
Lebanese state media confirmed on Monday that people were receiving Israeli phone warnings telling them to evacuate.
“Citizens in Beirut and a number of areas are receiving landline telephone warning messages whose source is the Israeli enemy, asking them to quickly evacuate where they are,” NNA said, calling the warning as “part of the psychological war that the enemy has adopted.”
The office of Lebanon’s caretaker Information Minister Ziad Makary also received a message to evacuate the premises, NNA said.
Makary’s office, located in Beirut near several other ministries, said it received a landline call and when staff responded, a “recorded message” told them to evacuate the building in order to avoid strikes.
Imad Kreidieh, head of state telecommunications provider Ogero, said “the landline network system in Lebanon blocks all communications from Israel.”
But Israel “circumvents the communications systems by using the international phone code of a friendly country,” he told AFP.
NNa had reported earlier that the strikes in the east killed a “civilian,” a shepherd, “and wounded two members of his family” and four others.
Al Arabiya sources have also confirmed that one person was killed in the strikes.
Israeli warplanes carried out an intense wave of air strikes on towns along Lebanon’s southern border and even further north on Monday morning, according to Reuters witnesses.
The NNA said “enemy warplanes launched... more than 80 air strikes in half an hour,” targeting south Lebanon’s Nabatiyeh district. It also reported strikes in the Tyre area.
Reuters reporters in the southern port city of Tyre said they could hear warplanes flying low over southern Lebanon and hear a series of air strikes nearby.
At the same time, the NNA reported “intense raids in the Bekaa” Valley in the east, deep inside Lebanon near the Syrian border, including in the vicinity of Baalbek and the outskirts of Hermel.
Hezbollah and Israel exchanged heavy fire into Sunday, as the Lebanese militant group sent rockets deep into northern Israeli territory after facing intense bombardment.
Hezbollah deputy chief Naim Qassem told mourners at the funeral of one of the group's commanders killed last week in Beirut: "We have entered a new phase, the title of which is the open-ended battle of reckoning.”
On Tuesday and Wednesday, thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies that were allegedly used by Hezbollah members exploded. The attack – which killed 39 people in Lebanon and wounded nearly 3,000 – has been widely blamed on Israel, which has not confirmed or denied responsibility.
With Reuters and AFP.
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