Israel steps up strikes on Lebanon; 28 health workers dead, says WHO

Israel’s military told residents of more than 20 towns in south Lebanon to evacuate their homes immediately on Thursday as it pressed on with cross-border incursions and struck Hezbollah targets in a suburb of Beirut.

The latest warnings took the number of southern towns subject to evacuation calls to 70 and included the provincial capital Nabatieh, suggesting another Israeli military operation was imminent against the Iran-backed armed group.

Iran’s warning

• Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, speaking in Doha, said, “Crossing our red lines will be met with a decisive response by our armed forces.”
• Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani called for serious ceasefire efforts to stop what he called Israel’s aggression.

Hezbollah also carried out new strikes, targeting what it called Israel’s ‘Sakhnin base’ for military industries in Haifa Bay on the Mediterranean coast of northern Israel with a salvo of rockets.

More than 1.2 million Lebanese had been displaced by Israeli attacks, and nearly 2,000 people had been killed since the start of the Israeli attacks on Lebanon over the last year, most of them in the past two weeks, Lebanese authorities said.

There are also growing concerns about getting medical supplies for the wounded, and the World Health Organization said 28 healthcare workers had been killed in Lebanon in the past 24 hours.

The Lebanese army said two soldiers were killed by Israeli strikes in separate incidents in south Lebanon on Thursday. The army said that it returned fire when the military post was struck.

In Beirut's southern suburb known as Dahiye, a dense neighbourhood where Hezbollah holds sway, several explosions were heard and several large plumes of smoke were seen rising after heavy Israeli strikes.

Hezbollah said it detonated a bomb against Israeli forces infiltrating a southern Lebanese village and attacked Israeli forces near the border.

Overnight, Israel bombed central Beirut in an attack the Lebanese health ministry said killed nine people.