Israeli strikes on Beirut kill at least nine as military calls for more Lebanon evacuations

Strikes by Israel on Beirut have killed at least nine as the military called on citizens in southern Lebanon to evacuate more than 20 more towns in a sign of a potential expansion of its ground and air assault on Hezbollah.

The latest warnings took the number of southern towns subject to evacuation calls to 70 and included the provincial capital Nabatieh, suggesting another Israeli military operation was imminent, further stoking fears of an all-out regional war.

Into Thursday, Israel bombed central Beirut in an attack the Lebanese health ministry said killed nine people. A Hezbollah-linked civil defence group said seven of its staff, including two medics, were killed in the Beirut attack. In response, Josep Borrell, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy accused Israel of a possible breach of humanitarian lae: “Not only civilians are victims of attacks, including in densely populated areas, but they are deprived of emergency care. I condemn this violation of IHL [international humanitarian law],” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. Israel denies all such accusations.

The World Health Organisation chief said that 28 healthcare workers had been killed over the past 24 hours in Lebanon. "Many (other) health workers are not reporting to duty and fled the areas where they work due to bombardments," Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told an online press briefing. "This is severely limiting the provision of mass trauma management and continuity of health services," he said.

In In Beirut's southern suburb known as Dahiye, a dense neighbourhood where Hezbollah holds sway, several explosions were heard on Thursday and several large plumes of smoke were rising after heavy Israeli strikes. Israel also said it struck a municipality building in the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil, killing 15 Hezbollah members and destroying many weapons.

The Israeli military said that it had struck around 200 Hezbollah targets across Lebanon, including weapons storage facilities and observation posts

Hezbollah and Israel started trading near-daily cross-border fire in the wake of Israel launching its war inside Gaza in retaliation for the 7 October attack by Hamas inside Israel during which around 1,200 people were killed and 251 more being taken hostage. Israel’s retaliatory air and ground assault in Gaza has killed at least 41,700 people, according to the latest update from the local health ministry in Gaza, and has led to more than 90 per cent of the enclave’s population being displaced.

More than 1.2 million Lebanese have been displaced by Israeli attacks, and nearly 2,000 people have been killed since the start of the Israeli attacks on Lebanon over the last year, most of them in the past two weeks, Lebanese authorities said.

Hezbollah also carried out new strikes, targeting what it called Israel's "Sakhnin base" for military industries in Haifa Bay on the Mediterranean coast of northern Israel with a salvo of rockets. Hezbollah also claimed it had repelled several land operations by Israeli troops, including with ambushes and in direct clashes.

Eight Israeli soldiers were killed in ground combat on Wednesday in south Lebanon as its forces thrust into its northern neighbour.

On Thursday, The Lebanese army said two soldiers were killed by Israeli strikes in separate incidents in south Lebanon on Thursday, one in an attack on a military post and another in a strike on a rescue mission with the Lebanese Red Cross.

The army said that it returned fire when the military post was struck, a rare development for a force that has historically stayed on the sidelines of major conflict with Israel. It is the first time the Lebanese army has fired on Israeli troops in almost of year of clashes with Hezbollah.

As it pushes into Lebanon, Israel is also weighing its options for retaliation against its arch-foe Iran.

Tehran launched its largest ever assault on Israel on Tuesday in what it said was retaliation for Israel's assassination of senior Hamas and Hezbollah leaders and its operations in Gaza and Lebanon. Iran backs both Hamas and Hezbollah. Israel has vowed to respond.

US President Joe Biden said on Thursday that the US was discussing possible strikes by Israel on Iran’s oil industry. Asked on a visit if he would support Israel striking Iran’s oil facilities, Biden said: “We’re discussing that." The price of oil jumped 5 per cent after the remarks before falling some, with Iran in the top-10 oil producers in the world.

The Israeli military also said on Thursday that it killed a senior Hamas leader in an airstrike in the Gaza Strip around three months ago. It said that a strike on an underground compound in northern Gaza killed Rawhi Mushtaha and two other Hamas commanders.

There was no immediate comment from Hamas. Mushtaha was a close associate of Yahya Sinwar, the top leader of Hamas who helped mastermind the 7 October attack. Sinwar is believed to be alive and in hiding inside Gaza.

Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report