Sept. 23 (UPI) — Lebanese health officials said at least 492 people were killed and more than a thousand were injured Monday as the Israel military “deepened” major airborne raids it said were aimed at thwarting an Oct. 7-like attack on Northern Israel by Hezbollah.
The casuality toll was announced by Public Health Emergency Operations Center of the Ministry of Public Health, which said 35 children and 58 woman were among the dead, Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported. A least 1,645 were injured, it added.
The strikes, described by Lebanese media as “Israeli madness,” were the most violent since Iran-backed Hezbollah joined the fighting to support Hamas, another Iran proxy militia, on Oct. 8. They were even worse than the Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006, observers said.
Israel Defense Forces said it had broadened an operation targeting Hezbollah weapons hidden inside people’s homes, with Israeli warplanes striking more than 1,300 targets throughout Lebanon.
The most significant offensive operation by Israel since Hezbollah entered the Israel-Hamas conflict on Oct. 8 on the side of Hamas saw many of the airstrikes hit residential districts, but it was unknown how many of the victims were Hezbollah operatives or civilians.
The IDF insisted the raids were “precise, intelligence-based strikes against terrorist targets.”
“Every house we strike contains weapons,” said IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hargari, who in an earlier video message warning of “extensive strikes” urged civilians in dozens of villages in southern Lebanon along a 50-mile stretch of the border with Israel to leave their homes.
Late Monday, Hagari defended the operation in a video statement as part of a preemptive strike aimed at preventing Hezbollah from carrying out a plan he said was to do to Northern Israel what Hamas did to the south when it killed 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped 251 others in a bloody attack that ignited the now nearly year-old war.
“For years, Hezbollah has been planning to do in northern Israel what Hamas did in southern Israel on Oct. 7: invade Israel, infiltrate civilian communities and massacre innocent civilians,” he said.
On Friday, Israel carried out airstrikes, killing senior Hezbollah military commander Ibrahim Aqil, whom Hagari called Monday the architect of the plan, known as Conquer the Galilee, which is a region in northern Israel.
Hagari said he was killed as he was meeting with other Hezbollah leaders planning the attack.
Monday’s “extensive strikes” in Lebanon were on targets that posed an “imminent threat” to northern Israel, he said, adding they provided advanced warning to communities in order to prevent civilian casualties.
He accused Hezbollah of using civilians as human shields and postulated that civilian deaths could be attributed to secondary explosions from the militia’s rockets and bombs detonating under the Israeli airstrikes.
“For over 20 years Hezbollah has deployed its arms inside homes and militarized civilian infrastructure. As a result, the Hezbollah terrorist organization has turned southern Lebanon into a battlefield,” Hagari said in an earlier Monday video post on X, in which he alleged the weapons involved ranged from cruise missiles and rockets to launchers and drones.
Hagari said the weapons were being stored inside civilian homes “hidden behind the Lebanese population,” and that the IDF was monitoring the activity, locating the weapons and launching strikes to destroy them.
“We ask residents of Lebanese villages to pay attention to the message and warning published by the IDF and heed them. This is an advance warning for your own safety and the safety of your family. Hezbollah is endangering you and your family.”
The warnings were extended to all citizens in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa valley with warnings on social media followed up with texts and voice messages telling people to leave, although not where.
Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant described the attack as “destroying” Hezbollah’s capabilities that were built up over two decades, while suggesting that further attacks would come.
“We have many more steps in the bak of goals — we will implement them one by one, until we achieve our goal,” he said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the Lebanese people in a recorded statement that “Israel’s war is not with you. It’s with Hezbollah.”
“Please get out of harm’s way now,” he said. “Once our operation is finished, you can come back safely to your homes.”
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned Israel for prosecuting what he said was a “war of extermination.”
The strikes into Lebanon came amid rising fears of expanding war in the Middle East with Israel ramping up its attacks against the Iran-backed militia.
The two sides have been engaged in tit-for-tat cross-border strikes since the start of Israel’s war against Hamas, another Iran-backed group, in Gaza nearly a year ago. However, the intensity of the conflict has recently escalated with both sides loosening the restraints.
Hezbollah rocket fire over the weekend penetrated deep into Israeli territory, as far south as the port city of Haifa.
Last week, 37 people were killed and nearly 3,000 more injured over two days in a brazen attack that saw pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah militants in Lebanon explode simultaneously. Israel, which has yet to comment, has been blamed for the attack.
The tick-up in the violence is raising fears that a conflict, previously contained to Israel and the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, could suck in the rest of the region.
At the same time, Israeli officials declared a new objective: the return of tens of thousands of displaced Israelis to their northern Israel homes, near the Lebanese border.
About 60,000 Israelis have been evacuated from northern Israeli towns close to the Lebanese border because of the constant artillery and rocket strikes coming from across the border.
While Hezbollah has threatened retaliation over the communication-device detonations and has continued its barrage of missile attacks on Israel, Israel has also said it is determined to see its citizens return to their homes and has retaliated in kind.
On Sunday, U.S. President Joe Biden told reporters that his administration was working to contain the conflict.
“We’re going to do everything we can to keep a wider war from breaking out,” he said, according to a Sunday afternoon press pool report. “And we’re still pushing hard.”
Dalal Saoud contributed to this story from Lebanon.
