Escalating hostilities have forced nearly 700,000 people to flee their homes in Lebanon, a UN agency said on Monday, as the war between Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah entered a second week.
Lebanon has been pulled deep into the war in the Middle East since Hezbollah opened fire to avenge the killing of Iran's supreme leader, igniting an Israeli offensive which has killed more than 400 people in Lebanon, according to Lebanese authorities.
The toll from Israeli strikes on Lebanon rose to 486 people killed and 1,313 wounded since the start of fighting last week, the Lebanese health ministry said Monday.
"The toll of the Israeli aggression from dawn on Monday, March 2, until Monday afternoon, March 9, has risen to 486 martyrs and 1,313 wounded," the ministry said in a statement.
Israeli strikes sent columns of smoke billowing from Beirut's Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs, and over the hilltops of southern Lebanon.
Security sources in Lebanon said Israeli airstrikes hit five branches of a financial institution run by Hezbollah, Al-Qard Al-Hassan, in the southern suburbs after Israel announced it would act against it.
'CHILDREN ARE BEING KILLED'
The Israeli military has ordered people out of the southern suburbs, a swathe of south Lebanon, and parts of the eastern Bekaa Valley region - all areas that have served as political and security strongholds of Hezbollah.
"Mass displacement across Lebanon has forced nearly 700,000 people – including around 200,000 children – from their homes, adding to the tens of thousands already uprooted from previous escalations," Edouard Beigbeder, UNICEF regional director, said in a statement.
"Children are being killed and injured at a horrifying rate, families are fleeing their homes in fear, and thousands of children are now sleeping in cold and overcrowded shelters," he said.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, visiting his military's northern command, said the mass evacuations presented an opportunity "to make this area even safer".
The Israeli military announced on Sunday that two of its soldiers had been killed in southern Lebanon, its first fatalities of the conflict. No fatalities have been reported in Israel as a result of Hezbollah rocket and drone attacks.
Lebanon, with a population of some 6 million, has turned its largest sports venue, the Camille Chamoun Stadium in Beirut, into a displacement center. On Monday, families sifted through boxes of donated clothes, pulling out coats and sweaters to help them bear the cold weather. Tents have gone up across the city.
"We hope this crisis doesn't last," Naji Hammoud, the director general of Lebanon's sports facilities, told Reuters.
More than 1 million people were forced to flee their homes in Lebanon during a war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2024.
ISRAEL UNAWARE OF CLASH REPORTED BY HEZBOLLAH IN EAST
Hezbollah announced attacks including a rocket salvo targeting the town of Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel, and a rocket attack on a gathering of Israeli soldiers and military vehicles in south Lebanon near the village of al-Adaisseh.
Air raid sirens sounded in Israeli towns and villages near the border on Monday, sending people fleeing to their shelters. There were no reports of casualties.
The Israeli military said it was unaware of any clash with Hezbollah fighters in eastern Lebanon, after the group said it had fought Israeli soldiers approaching from Syria.
Hezbollah said in a statement its fighters had observed 15 helicopters flying over eastern Lebanon just after midnight, saying they dropped Israeli troops who then approached Lebanese territory.
Reuters was unable to immediately verify Hezbollah's account.
The Israeli military carried out an airborne raid in the same area, near the village of Nabi Sheet, overnight into Saturday. Lebanon's Health Ministry said 41 people had been killed in Israeli attacks in the Nabi Sheet area.
The Israeli military said that weekend raid was an operation to seek the remains of Ron Arad, an Israeli air force navigator missing in Lebanon since 1986, but no findings related to him were recovered.
On Sunday, an Israeli drone strike hit a hotel in Beirut's seafront Rouche district. The Israeli military said the strike killed five senior commanders of what it described as the Lebanon Corps of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Quds Force.
The Israeli military has sent more troops into southern Lebanon since the start of the war, establishing what it described as forward defensive positions to guard against Hezbollah attacks into Israel.
