People watch as smoke billows over southern Lebanon following Israeli strikes, as seen from Sour, southern Lebanon, Sept. 23. (Credit: Aziz Taher/Reuters)
Israel carried out around 800 strikes against large swaths of southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley on Monday as part of what its army dubbed "Operation Northern Arrows." The relentless bombings killed whole families in their homes and sent tens of thousands of people fleeing northward. Several of the attacks were against villages hit for the first time since cross-border strikes began.
Monday morning, in the wake of quickly escalating violence, the Israeli army had promised "more extensive" raids against Hezbollah and issued a warning to people in Lebanon to "stay away from Hezbollah targets." Throughout the day, members of Hezbollah were going door-to-door in the Nabatieh district of southern Lebanon as well as in Beirut's southern suburbs telling residents to leave their homes and head to safer places.
Shortly before 7 p.m. Beirut time, the Israeli air force carried out what it described as a "targeted strike" on the southern suburbs of Beirut, reportedly against Ali Karaki, who Israel says is in charge of Hezbollah's operations in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah quickly declared Karaki to be alive and well.
By the end of Monday, Israeli strikes had killed 492 people and injured 1,645, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health. Thirty-five children and 58 women were among those who were killed. The Ministry of Health has urged all hospitals in the governorates of South Lebanon, Nabatieh, and Baalbek-Hermel to suspend non-urgent surgeries to prioritize the treatment of those injured in the ongoing "Israeli aggression against Lebanon."
Later in the afternoon on Monday, Israeli media reported a "massive" barrage fired toward central and northern Israel from Lebanon, and sirens went off Haifa, Tel Aviv and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where some missiles fell in open areas, according to the Israeli army.
The Israeli strikes
On Monday morning, shortly before 7 a.m., the Israeli army announced the launch of a "vast operation" of strikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon. The state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported Israeli jets had conducted more than 80 airstrikes in half an hour, targeting areas in southern Lebanon, alongside "intense raids in the Bekaa Valley."
The Israeli army announced its jets had struck more than 150 targets in Lebanon in the morning, announced 500 by mid-afternoon, and then a total of 800 by early evening.
L'Orient Today's correspondents in eastern and southern Lebanon reported strikes on dozens of sites throughout the Bekaa, up to Hermel, and in southern Lebanon, where dozens of towns were hit, many of them for the first time.
A missile fell around 34 kilometers north of Beirut on Monday morning in the uninhabited mountainous area of Wardiyat, near the villages of Ehmej and Almat, in Jbeil district. No casualties were reported and Ehmej's mayor said he believed the incident to be a mistake, noting that Israeli jets had been flying continuously over the area all morning, possibly en route to the Bekaa.
"More than 1,100 targets and more than 1,400 types of ammunition have been targeted in recent hours," the Israeli army's Arabic-speaking spokesperson announced around 9 p.m. "Warplanes and drones from all air force bases took off and carried out, in the last 24 hours, about 650 rounds of attack with the aim of eliminating threats," he wrote in a statement on X. According to the army, these raids targeted buildings, cars and infrastructure in which "missiles, missile launchers and explosive-laden drones" were located.
Hezbollah's response
According to the Israeli army, by Monday evening, Hezbollah had fired 210 rockets toward northern Israel. It's unclear how many missiles were intercepted and how many landed, but the Israeli army did mention "some" rockets falling in open areas in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system will calculate the trajectory of an incoming missiles and won't fire interceptors if its likely to fall in an uninhabited area.
Hezbollah announced having launched dozens of rockets at the Ramat David military base southeast of Haifa and the headquarters of the Rafael Advanced Defense System military technology company in northern Haifa. Hezbollah attacked these sites twice on Monday, and both were also targeted by the party on Sunday.
Hezbollah also announced having targeted the headquarters of the northern army corps at the Ein Zeitim base with dozens of rockets, and by late afternoon, the group stated it had targeted the headquarters of a battalion at the Yoav barracks and struck major warehouses in the northern region at the Nimra base.
Panic grips Lebanon as residents from the south flee
On Monday morning, the Israeli army has called on people to "stay away from Hezbollah targets" in southern Lebanon — the first warning of this kind addressed to the Lebanese population by the Israeli army since the beginning of the war on Oct. 8. Residents of southern Lebanon received messages "from Israelis" and phone calls urging them to "stay away from villages with buildings where Hezbollah stores weapons," according to our correspondent in the region.
The Lebanese ministries of Information and Culture received a phone call from a "person speaking Arabic with a Western accent," telling them to evacuate their offices in Hamra, a neighborhood in western Beirut, as quickly as possible "because they are targeted."
Across the country, more than 80,000 suspected Israeli phone calls were received, telling people to evacuate their areas, according to telecoms company Ogero CEO, Imad Kreidieh. Such calls were "psychological warfare to make havoc and chaos," he told Reuters.
Caretaker Telecommunications Minister Johnny Corm announced that "there is no violation of the official telecommunications network by Israel," and called the messages received by various people in Lebanon "fraud operations carried out through electronic applications that do not require high technologies to penetrate the network."
"The ministry has adjusted the fixed network," Corm said, "knowing that the telecommunications system in Lebanon is already designed to prevent the reception of any calls coming from Israel and that the Israeli code is prohibited in the Lebanese network.
In response to these strikes, which have now hit previously unaffected villages, tens of thousands of residents from southern Lebanon decided to leave the region today. Our correspondents on the ground have reported massive traffic jams.
In light of this exodus, the Ministry of Interior has decided to open some public schools and vocational institutes in various regions of Lebanon to shelter the displaced. In the evening, Lebanon’s Minister of Health emphasized that the emergency plan has been activated, including a 1474 hotline. Mobile teams from the ministry will monitor the situation of the displaced across Lebanon. The minister also called for international aid to assist in managing the crisis.
The Lebanese Minister of Education has announced the closure of public and private schools on Monday and Tuesday in the south, east, and southern suburbs of Beirut. By the evening, the closure was extended to all schools, daycare centers, and universities throughout Lebanon for Tuesday.
The context
It has been a particularly violent week in Lebanon. On Tuesday thousands of pagers used by Hezbollah were simultaneously detonated, and again the next day, walkie-talkies used by the group exploded in another wave. Thirty-nine people were killed and thousands across the country were injured in the double attacks, widely attributed to Israel.
Then on Friday, the Israeli air force bombed a residential building in Beirut's southern suburbs, using four missiles and causing it to collapse upon impact. Over 50 people were killed including two high-ranking Hezbollah military commanders and 15 other commanders in the group's elite Radwan Forces. Four days later, search and rescue operations are still underway for the remaining missing.
Also last week, the Israeli army moved its elite 98th Division, deployed in Gaza, to the northern front, saying the transfer was part of the military's decision to shift its center of gravity to the Lebanese border. The 98th Division includes the Paratroopers Brigade and the Commando Brigade, according to Haaretz. It joins the 36th Division, which has been stationed in northern Israel for several months.
The Israeli government now includes in its war objectives the return of tens of thousands of residents from northern Israel who were evacuated following Hezbollah's opening of a front in support of Hamas, the day after the Gaza war began.
"We are determined to ensure that the residents of the north can return home safely," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday. "No country can tolerate its inhabitants, its cities being attacked, and we will not tolerate it either."
"We have inflicted a series of blows on Hezbollah that it never imagined," he added, speaking for the first time on this subject since the attacks, attributed to Israel, against the party's hand-held communication devices and an Israeli strike that killed the leader of its elite unit and 15 of its commanders in Beirut on Friday.
"We will know how to reach anyone who threatens the citizens of Israel," warned Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi. It is "a message to Hezbollah, the Middle East and beyond."
"The threats will not stop us: we are ready for all military scenarios against Israel," said Hezbollah deputy Naim Qassem, during the funeral of Ibrahim Aqil, the commander killed on Friday. Echoing the words of Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant last week, he announced "a new phase" in the battle against Israel.
In the early hours of Sunday morning, Hezbollah launched three waves of strikes against Israel, targeting the Ramalt David military base, a significant airbase in northern Israel, and the site of a military technology company known for producing Iron Dome platforms near Haifa.