Israel carried out airstrikes Tuesday in southern Lebanon, a day after widespread Israeli attacks killed at least 492 people and injured more than 1,650 others.
The Israeli military said its Tuesday strikes hit dozens of Hezbollah targets, including fighters involved in firing several rounds of rockets at northern Israel.
That followed Monday’s attacks on more than 1,300 targets in southern and eastern Lebanon.
Among those killed Monday were 35 children and 58 women, Lebanese health officials said.
The Israeli military warned residents of the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon’s east to stay away from Hezbollah’s armament supply depots.
In a recorded message to Lebanese civilians, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged them to heed Israeli calls to evacuate, saying they should “take this warning seriously.”
“Please get out of harm’s way now,” Netanyahu said. “Once our operation is finished, you can come back safely to your homes.” Thousands of people have fled southern Lebanon, jamming the main highway north to Beirut.
Through a spokesman, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he “is indeed alarmed by the escalating situation” along the Israeli-Lebanon border, especially the large number of civilian casualties and the thousands of displaced persons.
The surge in fighting along the Israel-Lebanon border during the past week has raised fears of a widening regional conflict, as Israel also battles Iran-backed Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Foreign ministers from the Group of 7 leading industrial nations issued a statement late Monday calling for “a stop to the current destructive cycle.”
“Actions and counter-reactions risk magnifying this dangerous spiral of violence and dragging the entire Middle East into a broader regional conflict with unimaginable consequences,” the ministers said.
Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire since the outbreak of the war in Gaza last Oct. 7, when the militant group began firing rockets in solidarity with the Palestinians and its fellow Iran-backed ally Hamas. The fighting has killed dozens of people in Israel, hundreds in Lebanon, and displaced tens of thousands on both sides of the frontier.
The war in Gaza began with Hamas’ October 2023 attack on southern Israel, in which Palestinian militants killed about 1,200 people and took about 250 others hostage. They are still holding around 100 captives, a third of whom are believed to be dead. More than 41,400 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, with the Israeli military saying the death toll includes thousands of Hamas fighters.
Hamas has been designated a terror group by the U.S., the United Kingdom, the European Union and others. Hezbollah also is a U.S.-designated terror group.
Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters
