Netanyahu: We are changing the balance of power in north

Israel hits 1,600 targets in Monday strikes on Hezbollah as Lebanese flee; 492 killed

IDF says it targeted many homes where Hezbollah keeps missiles in deadliest barrages since 2006 war, urges civilians to get away; Hezbollah fires 200 rockets deep into Israel

By Emanuel Fabian,
ToI Staff and AP 23 September 2024, 4:54 pmUpdated at 2:20 am Edit
Footage shows scenes from southern Lebanon following Israeli airstrikes on Hezbollah targets (Anadolu Agency/Reuters); cars sit in traffic as they flee the ongoing escalation, in Sidon (Social media/X; used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law), September 24, 2024.

Widespread Israeli airstrikes targeting Hezbollah in southern Lebanon killed at least 492 people Monday and injured over 1,645 more, Beirut said, as Israel cautioned that strikes against the group would expand and Lebanese civilians were warned to flee areas where the Iran-backed terror group was thought to be hiding weapons.

The IDF said the air force was targeting homes where “rockets, drones and missiles” were emplaced by Hezbollah, and repeatedly urged civilians in Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley to flee from homes where such weapons were stored. It said many of the dead were Hezbollah members.

Israelis also took shelter as Hezbollah bombarded Israel with over 200 rockets on Monday alone, setting off sirens in northern Israel, near the bay metropolis of Haifa and as far south as some West Bank settlements near Tel Aviv, causing some damage but no major casualties. The barrages, which marked some of the heaviest since fighting broke out on October 8 last year, served to up the ante after the terror group bombarded northern communities with at least 150 rockets a day earlier.

In Lebanon, videos shared on social media appeared to show masses fleeing major cities, and authorities began opening schools to shelter thousands of newly displaced.

The Israel Defense Forces said it struck some 1,600 targets across Lebanon on Monday, including many homes it said housed weapons directly threatening the country, in the deadliest barrages of airstrikes since the 2006 war against Hezbollah, ratcheting up fears of a fresh outbreak of all-out conflict on the restive border.

Speaking from an underground command room at military headquarters in Tel Aviv, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was changing the balance of power with Hezbollah, signaling Israel would no longer play defense after months of cross-border violence.

Tens of thousands of Israelis have been displaced from their homes in northern Israel since last October by relentless Hezbollah rocket fire, and Israel’s cabinet last week designated the secure return of those residents to their homes as an official aim of the current conflict.

This undated image released by the IDF on September 23, 2024, purportedly show a Hezbollah missile system in the attic of a home in the southern Lebanon village of Houmine al-Tahta. (Israel Defense Forces)

“We do not wait for a threat, we anticipate it. Everywhere, in every theater, at any time,” he said.

At least 492 people were killed in the strikes and another 1,645 were wounded, Lebanon’s health ministry said, marking the deadliest day in Lebanon since Hezbollah began firing at Israel last year, drawing Israeli counterstrikes.

The dead and wounded included women and children, the ministry said. There was no immediate comment from Hezbollah on casualties within the terror group, which has suffered heavy losses in recent days.

On social media, videos showed long lines of traffic as civilians tried to reach safety, and streams of vehicles flowing out of small mountainside towns.

In one video, cars could be seen queued up on a highway lined with Hezbollah and Lebanese flags as black smoke from recent airstrikes billowed in the background.

In the seaside city of Sidon, all eight lanes of Rafic Hariri Boulevard were filled with cars pointed north as they sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

In Nabatieh, a video showed a number of people in cars trying to leave town being blocked as a massive explosion erupted in front of them.

In a press conference, IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari noted that some videos of strikes depicted secondary explosions, pointing to these as evidence of Hezbollah weapons stores.

“The sights that are now seen in southern Lebanon are Hezbollah’s weapons exploding inside houses. Every home we struck, there are rockets, drones, missiles, which were intended to kill Israeli civilians,” Hagari said, urging civilians in Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley to flee from homes where Hezbollah has been storing weapons.

Col. Avichay Adraee, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman, had given civilians two hours to leave Beqaa.

Netanyahu, who met with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi and Air Force commander Tomer Bar, said Israel’s strikes were aimed at eliminating senior Hezbollah officials, terrorists, and missile caches.

“Whoever tries to hurt us, we hurt him even more,” he said. “I promised we would change the security balance, the balance of power in the north. This is exactly what we are doing. We are destroying thousands of missiles and rockets aimed at Israeli cities and Israeli citizens.”

With airstrikes continuing to pound areas of Lebanon, the health ministry asked hospitals in southern Lebanon and the eastern Beqaa Valley to postpone surgeries that could be done later.

An Israeli fighter jet is seen from Haifa, northern Israel, on Sept. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)

The ministry said in a statement that its request aimed to keep hospitals ready to deal with people wounded by “Israel’s expanding aggression on Lebanon.”

Earlier Monday, Israel urged residents of southern Lebanon to evacuate from homes and other buildings where it claimed Hezbollah has stored weapons, saying the military would conduct “extensive strikes” against the militant group.

Lebanese media reported that residents received text messages urging them to move away from any building where Hezbollah stores arms.

“If you are in a building housing weapons for Hezbollah, move away from the village until further notice,” the Arabic message read, according to Lebanese media.

A Syrian family sit with their belongings in the back of a truck as they wait in a traffic jam in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon on September 23, 2024. (Mahmoud ZAYYAT / AFP)

Lebanon’s Information Minister Ziad Makary told his countrymen to ignore the warnings, noting that his office in Beirut had received a recorded message telling people to leave the building.

“This comes in the framework of the psychological war implemented by the enemy,” Makary said, urging people “not to give the matter more attention than it deserves.”

Ahead of the mass exodus, residents of villages in southern Lebanon posted photos on social media of airstrikes and large plumes of smoke.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency also reported airstrikes on different areas, including some far from the border.

The agency said strikes hit a forested area in the central province of Byblos, about 130 kilometers (81 miles) north of the Israeli-Lebanese border, for the first time since Hezbollah began firing at Israel in October. No injuries were reported there. Israel also bombed targets in the northeastern Baalbek and Hermel regions, where a shepherd was killed and two family members were wounded, according to the news agency. It said a total of 30 people were wounded in strikes.

In Israel, sirens sounded in dozens of communities, as Hezbollah targeted the strategic industrial center of Haifa and towns across the north for a second day in a row with over 100 rockets in quick succession, according to the IDF. Sirens also sounded in West Bank settlements northeast of Tel Aviv during a volley of at least 10 rockets, the army said, seemingly marking a rare use of long-range rockets by Hezbollah.

There were no immediate reports of injuries, but some rockets were reported to have caused damage.

Some 80,000 Lebanese were thought to have already fled southern Lebanon over the last 12 months, which have seen near-daily cross-border Hezbollah rocket attacks and Israeli airstrikes. Another 60,000 people in northern Israel have been forced to evacuate their homes.

Rockets fired from Lebanon are intercepted over Safed on September 23, 2024 (David Cohen/Flash90)

Israel has long accused Hezbollah of transforming entire communities in southern Lebanon into terror bases, with hidden rocket launchers and other infrastructure.

Monday morning saw Hagari show previously unreleased footage of Hezbollah operatives preparing to launch a cruise missile from within a civilian home in a southern Lebanon village. The building was targeted in an airstrike.

The cruise missile was identified by the IDF as a Russian-made “DR-3,” which appeared to be a variant of the Tupolev Tu-143 drone, also called VR-3.

The IDF said the missile was packed with some 300 kilograms of explosives and had a range of up to 200 kilometers.

“Hezbollah puts you and your families in danger. Hezbollah is planning to launch these weapons toward Israel. Stay away from them immediately for your own protection,” Hagari told south Lebanese civilians in the earlier warning.

He said the military was carrying out continuous assessments with regard to guidelines for the Israeli home front, as fighting with Hezbollah escalates.

“If necessary, we will update on any change immediately,” he said.

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi (second from left) approves plans for strikes in Lebanon, alongside head of the Operations Division, Brig. Gen. Yisrael Shomer (left), head of the Operations Directorate, Maj. Gen. Oded Basiuk (second from right) and the head of the Intelligence Directorate’s research division, Brig. Gen. Ofir Mizrahi Rosen (right), at the IDF’s underground command room at the IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv, September 23, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces)

An Israeli military official said Israel is focused on aerial operations and has no immediate plans for a ground operation. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity in keeping with regulations, said the strikes are aimed at curbing Hezbollah’s ability to launch more strikes into Israel.

Hezbollah began firing into Israel a day after its ally Hamas’s October 7 massacre in southern Israel in what it said was an attempt to tie up Israeli forces to help Palestinian fighters in Gaza. Israel has retaliated with airstrikes, with the conflict steadily intensifying over the past year.

Emergency workers use excavators to clear the rubble at the site of Friday’s Israeli strike in Beirut’s southern suburbs, Lebanon, Monday, Sept. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

An Israeli airstrike on a Beirut suburb on Friday killed top Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil and other terror leaders.

Last week, thousands of communications devices, used mainly by Hezbollah members, exploded in different parts of Lebanon, killing 39 people and wounding nearly 3,000. Lebanon blamed Israel for the attacks, but Israel did not confirm or deny responsibility.

Israel has vowed to push Hezbollah back from the border so its citizens can return to their homes, saying it preferred to do so diplomatically but was willing to use force. Hezbollah has said it will keep up its attacks until there is a ceasefire in Gaza, but that appears increasingly elusive as the war nears its anniversary.

Israeli security forces examine the site hit by a rocket fired from Lebanon, in Kiryat Bialik, northern Israel, on Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024. (AP Photo//Ariel Schalit)

The terror group has named 506 members who have been killed by Israel during the ongoing skirmishes, mostly in Lebanon but some also in Syria. Another 79 operatives from other terror groups, a Lebanese soldier, and dozens of civilians have also been killed.

Israel has suffered 26 civilian deaths, along with 22 IDF soldiers reservists killed in Hezbollah-led rocket, missile and drone attacks.

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