Israel bombarded Hezbollah militant targets in Lebanon again on Tuesday, with the death toll from airstrikes since Monday mounting to 564, along with another 1,835 injured.
In all, Israel said it struck 1,600 sites, with Lebanese health officials saying 50 children had been killed in the barrage, along with at least 94 women.
The Israeli military said its strikes on Tuesday hit dozens of Hezbollah targets, including militants involved in launching several rounds of rockets at northern Israel.
Israel said one of its strikes in Beirut's southern suburbs killed Ibrahim Muhammad Kobeisi, identified by Israel as a senior Hezbollah military commander who oversaw Hezbollah's missile systems.
The United Nations refugee agency said it was “outraged and deeply saddened” by other Israeli attacks that killed two of its staff members.
Thousands of Lebanese, on their own and at the urging of Israel, have fled southern Lebanon in search of safety from the Israeli attacks, clogging roads north to Beirut. But Israel has also targeted sites in the capital, with one attack hitting a six-story building, killing six and injuring 15.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the opening of the annual United Nations General Assembly, “We should all be alarmed by the escalation. Lebanon is at the brink. The people of Lebanon, the people of Israel and the people of the world cannot afford Lebanon to become another Gaza,” where Israel and Hamas militants have been fighting for nearly a year.
But with Israel focusing on Hezbollah, its attacks on Hamas in Gaza have been sharply curtailed.
Both Hezbollah and Hamas are Iranian-funded groups designated by the U.S. and other countries as terrorist organizations that have vowed to destroy the Jewish state of Israel. Guterres called Gaza “a non-stop nightmare that threatens to take the entire region with it.”
“The international community must mobilize for an immediate cease-fire [in Gaza], the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, and the beginning of an irreversible process towards a two-state solution,” the creation of an independent Palestine alongside neighboring Israel.
The U.S. and some Arab countries support such an eventual outcome in the Mideast, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing government are opposed. Cease-fire talks have been stalemated for months.
With fighting on two fronts, Netanyahu told Israelis that they are headed into “complicated days.”
The Israeli military on Monday 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, 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.” Tens of thousands of people have fled southern Lebanon, mostly headed north to Beirut.
The surge in fighting along the Israel-Lebanon border during the past week has raised fears of a widening regional conflict, especially since there is no cease-fire on the horizon to halt fighting in Gaza.
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 diplomats said.
Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire since the outbreak of the war in Gaza last October 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' shock 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.
