Israeli air raids kill at least 492 people in Lebanon

Israeli air raids hitting mostly southern and eastern Lebanon have killed at least 492 people and wounded at least 1,645, according to the country’s health ministry, in the deadliest day of conflict in Lebanon since its 1975-90 civil war.

The ministry said the death toll on Monday included at least 35 children, 58 women and two medics as the bombardments hit homes, medical centres, ambulances and cars of people trying to flee.

The government ordered schools and universities to close across most of the country and began preparing shelters for people displaced from the south.

Tens of thousands of Lebanese fled the south, and the main highway out of the southern port city of Sidon was jammed with cars heading towards Beirut in the biggest exodus since the 2006 fighting.

Some attacks hit residential areas of towns in the south and the Bekaa Valley in the east. One strike hit a wooded area as far away as Byblos in central Lebanon, more than 129km (80 miles) from the border and north of Beirut.

The Israeli military also said it conducted a “targeted strike” in Beirut, without offering immediate details.

Israeli media reported that the target of the strike was senior military commander Ali Karaki, the head of the southern front, but Hezbollah said he was in good health and in a safe location.

The Israeli army said it had struck more than 1,300 sites used by the Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah. The increased hostilities raise further fears of an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah or even a wider regional conflagration.

Israel’s military warned people in Lebanon to move away from places used by Hezbollah, which launched a barrage of rockets into northern Israel on Sunday.

The warnings ignored the possibility that some residents could live in or near targeted structures without knowing they are at risk.

Many people who received warnings told that they did not know where to go.

The intensification of the fighting across the shared border, which has seen low-level skirmishes since Israel launched its war on Gaza in October, follows last week’s explosions of pagers and walkie-talkies, which killed dozens of people in Lebanon.

Early on Monday, Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari said its forces conducted “extensive strikes” against Hezbollah posts after identifying attempts to fire rockets.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday after the strikes that Israel faced “complicated days” and called on Israelis to stay united as the campaign unfolded.

“I promised that we would change the security balance, the balance of power in the north. That is exactly what we are doing,” he said in a message issued after a situational assessment at military headquarters in Tel Aviv.