Israel launches new wave of attacks across Lebanon | Israel attacks Lebanon News

Israeli forces have launched air strikes across Lebanon as Israel targets the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah during the Israeli-United States war on Iran.

Two Israeli air attacks on Tuesday hit Lebanon’s southern city of Tyre, known as Sour in Arabic. This came shortly after the Israeli army issued a statement threatening attacks on Tyre and Sidon, also known as Saida, urging residents to “evacuate immediately and move at least 300 metres [about 1,000ft] away”.

The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has intensified since the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on February 28, the first day of the US-Israeli strikes. Since then, the opposing forces have clashed in eastern Lebanon while Israel has carried out attacks across Lebanon, including the capital, Beirut.

“There is a battle for control over south Lebanon with the Israeli military increasing its presence along the border and within Lebanese territory,” Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr said, reporting from Zahrani, Lebanon.

Israeli media are reporting that “Israel wants to expand its presence in southern Lebanon, expand that buffer zone,” she said, but “Hezbollah says it has so far repelled advances on a number of axes.”

On Tuesday, Israel also launched an air raid on the southern Lebanese town of Qabrikha while Israeli jets attacked the towns of Deir Siryan and Taybeh, Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reported.

The Israeli military said it had launched air attacks near Ansariyeh, claiming that the air strikes targeted a Hezbollah headquarters in an area where it said rockets had been launched towards Israel.

Al Jazeera journalists on the ground also reported an Israeli drone strike that targeted the southern Lebanese town of Barashit while the NAA reported strikes on the southern towns of Adchit and Breqaa and said four people were injured in the town of Harouf.

A strike also hit the southern suburbs of Beirut after the Israeli army repeated its forced evacuation threat for the entire area, known collectively as Dahiyeh and home to hundreds of thousands of people. It warned of imminent attacks on the neighbourhoods of Haret Hreik, Ghobeiry, Laylaki, Hadath, Burj al-Barajneh, Tahwitat al-Ghadir and Chiyah.

“Israeli warplanes launched a raid a short while ago on the southern suburbs, the first after the warning issued by the enemy,” the NNA reported.

The Israeli military said it began “striking Hezbollah infrastructure” in the area.

‘We defend our land’

Earlier on Tuesday, the NNA reported that Israeli warplanes launched attacks overnight on the towns of Almajadel, Chaqra, Srifa and in the Bekaa Valley.

Attacks were also reported n the outskirts of Bint Jbeil and Ainatha. The NNA said four people were killed in the Bint Jbeil district.

The strikes came as Lebanese media reported that a Maronite Catholic priest, Pierre al-Rahi, was killed by Israeli tank fire in the village of Qlayaa in southern Lebanon.

Lebanese newspaper L’Orient-Le Jour reported that al-Rahi was killed when an Israeli tank fired on the home of a local couple a second time after several people had rushed there to try to help.

“We narrowly escaped a massacre because there were many of us there,” said Hanna Daher, the head of Qlayaa’s council, according to L’Orient-Le Jour.

“Despite this, several people were injured, including the priest, Pierre el-Rahi, who succumbed to his wounds.”

A day before he was killed, al-Rahi had spoken to the France24 television channel from the steps of his church in Qlayaa, saying he would stay to defend the village peacefully.

“We are forced to stay despite the danger when we defend our land, and we do so peacefully,” al-Rahi told France24.

“None of us carries weapons. All of us carry peace and goodness and love,” he added.

Hezbollah attacks

Separately, the Israeli army announced that in the past week, it had hit 30 sites belonging to the Al-Qard al-Hasan financial association in Lebanon, “which is affiliated with Hezbollah”.

The NNA reported that the nonprofit was also bombed by Israeli forces in October 2024. At the time, Amnesty International said the attacks should be investigated as a war crime as branches of financial institutions are civilian objects unless they are used for military purposes.

As Israeli attacks continued, Hezbollah has also increased its counterattacks.

At least 16 people were injured in a Hezbollah missile attack on central Israel, according to Magen David Adom, Israel’s national emergency medical service.

Hezbollah also said it launched a missile attack on the Givaa drone control base, east of the Israeli city of Safad, and fired rockets at the Yiftah barracks near the Lebanese-Israeli border.

Hezbollah’s fighters launched several attacks on Israeli forces in southern parts of Lebanon. It said its fighters ambushed Israeli soldiers on the outskirts of the city of Khiam and hit three Merkava tanks. The three vehicles were seen burning, it said.

Stop Lebanon ‘sliding into chaos’

On Monday, European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas urged both Hezbollah and Israel to stop their actions, calling for a return to the November 2024 ceasefire to stop the country “sliding into chaos”.

In a statement after crisis talks with Middle Eastern leaders, including Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Kallas called on Hezbollah to “cease all actions against Israel,” asserting the country’s “right to self-defence”.

She also called out Israel for “heavy-handed” retaliation that was “causing mass displacement” and “further destabilising a fragile situation”.

“Israel should cease its operations in Lebanon,” she said, warning that it “risks drawing Lebanon and its people into a war that is not theirs with severe humanitarian consequences”.

Aoun on Monday accused Hezbollah of working towards the “collapse” of the state, expressing Beirut’s readiness for “direct negotiations” with Israel.

At least 486 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on Lebanon since Monday last week, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health.

In addition, Israeli attacks on Lebanon have displaced 100,000 people in one day, bringing the total number of displaced above 667,000, United Nations official Karolina Lindholm Billing told reporters in Geneva from Beirut.

The representative in Lebanon for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees added that the figure represented “a faster pace of displacement” compared with 2024 during the previous war between Israel and Hezbollah.