Israel warned Lebanon of “disastrous” consequences if it failed to restrain the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, as Israeli forces intensified air strikes across the country and carried out a rare airborne raid in the east, says Reuters.
The escalation follows Hezbollah’s firing on Israel on Monday, an attack that drew a swift Israeli military response and effectively pulled Lebanon into the broader Middle East conflict.
Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli attacks since Monday have killed at least 294 people and wounded more than 1,000 across the country, with the toll expected to rise.
Heavy bombardment and evacuation orders have also displaced around 300,000 people, according to United Nations officials, in what one senior UN source described as an “unprecedented” wave of displacement.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a televised statement that Lebanon’s government was responsible for enforcing a 2024 agreement aimed at disarming Hezbollah.
“Your responsibility is to disarm Hezbollah. If you do not do this, Hezbollah’s aggression will result in disastrous repercussions for Lebanon. It is time for you to take your destiny in to your own hands. We will do all that is necessary to defend our communities and citizens,” Netanyahu said.
Defence Minister Israel Katz issued a similar warning, saying Lebanon’s government and the country as a whole would “pay a heavy price” if Hezbollah was not disarmed.
Israel had no territorial claims against Lebanon but would not tolerate cross-border fire, Katz said.
The Lebanese government last year ordered the army to establish a state monopoly on weapons, instructing it to confiscate arms held by non-state groups.
Troops have seized some Hezbollah weapons in parts of southern Lebanon, but senior Lebanese officials and security sources say implementing the plan nationwide risks internal tensions as the group has refused to fully relinquish its arsenal.
An Israeli military official told Reuters the country’s operations were aimed at “removing the threat from Lebanon”.
Israeli air strikes have hit Hezbollah strongholds across the country, including the southern suburbs of Beirut, where Reuters footage showed buildings reduced to smoking rubble and twisted metal.
Further east, in the town of Nabi Chit in the Bekaa Valley, a rare Israeli airborne operation was carried out overnight.
Israeli helicopters dropped troops near the town as part of a mission to search for the remains of Ron Arad, an Israeli air force navigator missing in Lebanon since 1986, the Israeli military said.
The operation did not uncover any findings related to Arad, it added.
Hezbollah said its fighters opened fire on Israeli troops who had landed near Nabi Chit by helicopter, forcing them to withdraw.
Israel’s military said none of its forces were injured.
Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli strikes in the Nabi Chit area killed 41 people in the past 24 hours.
The Lebanese army said three of its soldiers were among the dead.
Residents described a night of intense bombardment in the region.
Shawki al-Masri, who lives in a town near Nabi Chit, said helicopters flew low over homes during the overnight raid.
“We heard the helicopters over our house all night – they were so low we thought they would land on us,” he told Reuters.
Across Lebanon, evacuation orders issued by Israel’s military have forced civilians to leave large areas of the country.
The orders cover parts of southern Lebanon, several towns in the east and the entirety of Beirut’s southern suburbs, an area that amounts to roughly 8 per cent of the country’s territory.
Air raid sirens have also sounded repeatedly in Israel, warning residents of incoming rockets and drones and sending civilians into shelters.
The conflict has also prompted foreign nationals to leave Lebanon.
More than 150 Iranian citizens, including diplomats and their families, departed Beirut on Saturday, a senior Lebanese security source told Reuters, adding that another 20 left the previous day.
The Iranian embassy in Lebanon said the families of embassy staff, along with teachers and students from an Iranian school and a group of Iranian nationals living in the country, had temporarily left Beirut for safety reasons.
Hezbollah has warned Israeli residents living near the border to evacuate their homes.
Israel, however, said it had no plans to evacuate communities in the north, although many such towns were emptied during cross-border fighting in 2023 and 2024.
The United Nations warned on Saturday that the situation could deteriorate further and called for urgent talks between Israel and Lebanon to halt the hostilities.
