MEZIESBLOG

At least 100 people in Lebanon have been killed in Israeli airstrikes, its health ministry has now said. 

The figure has doubled from 50 given in an earlier update.

This would make it the deadliest day in Lebanon since the conflict started in October.  

The number of people wounded has risen to 400.

Israel says it has struck more than 300 Hezbollah targets today in a widespread wave of airstrikes.

Lebanese PM: Strikes are ‘genocide in every sense of the word’

Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister has called Israel’s barrage of airstrikes today a “genocide in every sense of the word”. 

Najib Mikati was talking in a cabinet meeting in Beirut, adding that Israel’s airstrikes aimed to destroy Lebanon’s towns and villages. 

Israel says it is attacking buildings housing Hezbollah weapons that it wants to destroy before they are launched at Israel.

Israel spokesman will not say if today’s attacks amount to a war

Israeli government spokesman David Mencer has been giving updates in a daily news conference. 

He has skirted round questions about whether Israel’s widespread attacks on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon today amount to a war.

Asked if the current state of the conflict could be called the “Third Lebanon War”, he says that since 8 October, Hezbollah “haven’t stopped, not for a single day attacking us, not for a single day”.

“No country can accept the wanton rocketing of its cities,” he adds.

Hezbollah says its attacks on Israel are in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

Another reporter asks if today’s strikes amount to a “declaration of war”.

Mr Mencer says: “Israel has a responsibility to defend its northern border. That is precisely what we are doing.”

Gridlock in parts of Beirut as IDF phone calls send ‘collective shiver’ through city

There is virtual gridlock in the centre of Beirut today as people leave their districts – particularly in the south of the city and those neighbourhoods controlled by Hezbollah.

We can see cars: on some of them people have stacked their belongings in the back, on others with children and relatives inside, trying to get out of those areas they fear will be attacked by the Israelis.

These recorded phone calls that have been made by the Israeli army have been received, however, all over the city, even in the centre (see 12.08pm post).

Sky News contacts at the information ministry, in the centre of the Lebanese capital, received these calls instructing them to evacuate if the building was storing or contained arms belonging to Hezbollah or any of its allies.

It has sent a collective shiver through the community. 

And it is an unwelcome reminder of previous times: the war in 2006, when much of the southern suburbs controlled by Hezbollah were destroyed in Israeli airstrikes.

This is something that people in each and every community that make up this city do not want to return to.

State schools in Beirut and in locations throughout the country have been designated by the education ministry as emergency shelters for people affected by an Israeli bombing campaign.

It is a sign that this country is now considering something that most people thought was once unthinkable: a major confrontation with the Israelis.