MEZIESBLOG

Israel’s military has begun carrying out extensive strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon this morning, a military spokesperson said.

Asked about a possible Israeli ground incursion, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said Israel “will do whatever is needed” to return evacuated residents of the north to their homes.

He claimed Hezbollah was preparing to fire on Israel, and called on residents of south Lebanon to keep their distance from Hezbollah posts.

Reuters witnesses described seeing an intense wave of airstrikes being carried out by Israeli warplanes on southern towns.

Hezbollah’s al-Manar television reported strikes on the outskirts of many towns and villages in the south and the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon. 

Footage showed columns of smoke rising over the south.

The latest round of attacks comes after a week of rising tensions, initiated on Tuesday and Wednesday by hundreds of pager and walkie-talking explosions in Lebanon which killed at least 37 people and injured more than 3,000 others.

Yesterday, Hezbollah and Israel exchanged heavy fire.

Real fear for millions in Lebanon as border clashes escalate

Friday’s Israeli airstrikes in the Hezbollah heartland of Beirut killed Ibrahim Aqil – one of its most senior military commanders and founder of the elite Radwan Force.

He was a man who had been on the US most-wanted list for decades and whom Israeli forces said “had the blood of many people on his hands”.

But women sobbed and the Hezbollah fighters acting as funeral bearers cried as they mourned the loss of a man many loyalists see as a hero.

They chanted for revenge and marched towards the burial ground known as the “Martyrs’ graveyard”, professing loyalty to the group which is a proscribed terror organisation in the US and UK.

At the same time further south in Lebanon, there were several funerals for civilians – mothers, children, whole families who were killed in the same airstrikes.

They were in one of two residential apartments hit by the strikes.

Israeli forces say the attack was targeted at the commander and a group of his elite forces meeting deep underneath one of the high-rise blocks. But multiple civilians including children were also killed alongside 16 Hezbollah fighters.

The death toll at the time of writing is more than 40.

The airstrikes in a densely populated part of Beirut followed two days of booby-trapped pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah members exploding around the country.

The three attacks in a week seem to have drawn the country together in grief and defiance – but there is also a real sense of fear among millions of people across Lebanon.

However, even as global leaders called for restraint and politicians in the UK and America urged their citizens to leave the country while they still could, both Israel and Lebanon intensified their exchanges along the border.