Israel warns residents in dozens of Lebanese border villages to evacuate as strikes intensify

By BASSEM MROUE and KAREEM CHEHAYEB

BEIRUT (AP) — Israel’s military issued warnings to residents of dozens of border villages in southern Lebanon to evacuate “immediately” Wednesday as airstrikes on suburbs of Beirut intensified and Hezbollah claimed more attacks.

Lebanon was dragged into the broader war in the Middle East early Monday when Hezbollah fired rockets and drones into northern Israel, triggering Israeli retaliatory airstrikes that killed more than 70 people, wounded more than 400 and displaced tens of thousands of people from southern Lebanon, the eastern Bekaa Valley and Beirut’s southern suburbs.

The ongoing conflict is not the first between Hezbollah and Israel. Hezbollah began firing into Israel a day after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on southern Israel triggered the war in Gaza. After months of low-level fighting, a full-scale war erupted in September 2024 and Israel later launched a ground invasion of Lebanon.

Israeli forces withdrew from most of southern Lebanon after a U.S.-brokered ceasefire halted the fighting in late 2024, but continued to occupy five points on the Lebanese side of the border. Israel also pressed on with near-daily strikes, primarily in southern Lebanon, saying that Hezbollah has been trying to rebuild its positions there, killing nearly 40...