Israel strikes Hezbollah targets as conflict intensifies
Dozens were killed and scores wounded in Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon on Monday, officials said. The strikes followed Israel’s military warning to civilians to leave areas where the Iran-backed militant group operates.
Earlier strikes Monday appeared to be the widest in geographic range simultaneously conducted by Israel in Lebanon since the war in Gaza began, after the two sides exchanged their most intense fire of the conflict over the weekend.
As fears of a wider regional war grow, Hezbollah’s second-in-command said “a battle without limits” was underway and the group launched some of its deepest strikes inside Israel in decades.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is considering a plan to force all Palestinians out of northern Gaza to lay siege to Hamas and force the release of hostages.
A popular Lebanese radio station said it was hacked and its broadcast was interrupted by an Israeli evacuation warning on Monday.
In a video, widely shared on social media but not verified by CNN, a voice can be heard breaking into a program on the Voice of Lebanon radio station to deliver what it said was “an urgent warning to the residents of south Lebanon.”
Voice of Lebanon, a privately owned radio station, said its services had been hacked by Israel, in a message posted on its website Monday.
The apparent radio hack comes as Lebanese citizens in Beirut and other regions said they received similar text messages, calling on them to evacuate immediately, according to the national news agency, NNA.
On Monday, the Israeli military’s chief spokesperson, Daniel Hagari, asked “residents of Lebanese villages to pay attention to the messages and warnings published by the IDF and heed them.”
