Israeli airstrikes pounded the southern suburbs of Beirut overnight and on Friday, smashing up city streets in an escalating conflict \u200bwith Iran-backed Hezbollah that has sent many tens of thousands of Lebanese from their homes.<\/p>\n
Israel ordered everyone in the densely-populated suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, to leave before launching strikes that lit \u200cup the night sky. It earlier warned civilians to quit swathes of southern and eastern Lebanon.<\/p>\n
They were the widest evacuation orders ever given by Israel against Lebanon and prompted a huge exodus of people before bombardments that turned buildings into rubble and took the facades off apartment blocks.<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s military spokesperson posts evacuation orders on social media platform X. On Wednesday, the spokesperson ordered residents to leave a swathe of southern Lebanon amounting to nearly 8% of Lebanese territory. On Thursday, the spokesperson issued evacuation orders for Beirut\u2019s southern suburbs with a roughly drawn map that included multiple suburbs and other towns, as well as written instructions that only mentioned some of those areas. Asked to clarify which areas in particular should evacuate, an IDF spokesperson told Reuters the map was \u201camorphic\u201d and that the text was \u201cwhat matters.\u201d<\/p>\n
An Israeli military official said several waves of strikes were launched against Hezbollah in the southern Beirut suburbs, striking about 115 targets including in residential buildings that the official said the group used as headquarters.<\/p>\n
Israeli airstrikes have also targeted Tripoli in the north of Lebanon, Tyre, Sidon and Nabatieh in the south, and Baalbek in the east, the official said. \u200bIsraeli military video showed what it said were strikes on command centres and weapons facilities in Lebanon. Reuters could not independently confirm that the buildings Israel hit did contain command centres or weapons facilities.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, many Lebanese evacuees were left without shelter after fleeing their homes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re sleeping here in the streets – some in cars, some on the street, some on the beach,\u201d said Jamal Seifeddin, 43, who spent the night outside in the capital\u2019s downtown district.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never \u200bslept on the ground like this. I\u2019ve been forced to. No one even brought a blanket,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n