JERUSALEM — Two Israeli air strikes targeted south Beirut on Sunday after the Israeli army warned civilians to evacuate the stronghold of Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, state media said.
“Enemy (Israeli) airplanes carried out two strikes this morning on Beirut’s southern suburbs, one of them hitting a residential building in Haret Hreik” near a mosque and a hospital, the National News Agency reported.
The Israeli army earlier ordered civilians located near buildings it said were “affiliated with Hezbollah” in two neighborhoods in south Beirut to immediately evacuate early Sunday, marking the facilities on two maps and saying the military would “work against” them soon.
The “urgent warning” was issued by the military’s Arabic spokesman Avichay Adraee, and concerned the neighborhoods of Haret Hreik and Hadath.
“You are located near facilities and interests affiliated with Hezbollah, which the IDF will work against in the near future,” Adraee said on Telegram.
“For your safety and the safety of your family members, you must evacuate the building and those adjacent to it immediately and move away from it for a distance of no less than 500 meters.”
Similar warnings have preceded Israeli air strikes in recent weeks after Israel stepped up its campaign against Iran-backed Hezbollah, which has a stronghold in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital.
Israel and Hezbollah, an ally of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, had been trading near-daily fire across the Lebanese border since the outbreak of the war in Gaza last year.
But Israel sharply escalated its campaign late last month, launching devastating air strikes and deploying ground forces.
Since late September, the war has killed at least 1,454 people in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures.
AN-AFP