• 20 more die as deadly strikes batter towns from Baalbek to Beirut
• Tel Aviv orders evacuation from vast region south of Litani River
• Hezbollah hits Israeli naval base, sites in Haifa, Tel Aviv

BEIRUT: In a brutal escalation of its war on Lebanon, Israel on Wednesday ordered residents in a vast region of the country’s south to flee their homes as it pounded towns with deadly air strikes and sent ground troops deeper into Lebanese territory.

Since Monday, Israeli strikes have killed at least 72 people and wounded 437 in Lebanon, the health ministry said before the overnight strikes, which killed at least 20 more people.

The Israeli military warned it was “compelled to take military action” in the south, a region of hundreds of square kilometres.

The fighting escalated after the resistance group Hezbollah retaliated on Monday to ‘avenge’ the assassination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during US-Israeli strikes over the weekend.

In an unprecedented order on Wednesday, the Israeli military demanded that all people living south of Lebanon’s Litani river evacuate immediately.

“Residents of southern Lebanon — you must move immediately to areas north of the Litani River,” Avichay Adraee, an Israeli military spokesman, posted on X.

As the evacuation order was issued, Israeli forces expanded their assault.

A deadly air strike hit a hotel in Hazmieh, the first reported Israeli attack on the predominantly Christian area in Beirut’s suburbs, which is located near the presidential palace and several foreign embassies. AFP images from the Comfort Hotel showed gutted rooms and wounded people receiving treatment in the lobby amidst debris.

The human cost mounted across the country. In the eastern city of Baalbek, a Hezbollah stronghold, strikes on a four-story building killed five people and wounded 15, with rescue workers still searching the rubble for three missing people, according to Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency.

In Aramoun and Saadiyat, south of Beirut, Israeli strikes killed six people and wounded eight, the health ministry reported. The World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said three paramedics were killed and six injured in Lebanon’s southern Tyre district.

“Warring parties must abide by international humanitarian law and protect health workers, facilities and patients,” he said on X.

Lebanese authorities have already recorded the displacement of more than 83,847 people.

As Israel’s assault intensified, Lebanese state media reported that the Israeli army had entered the southern Lebanese town of Khiam, about six kilometres from the border, its deepest incursion yet.

A senior Lebanese security official told Reuters that Israeli troops had moved into at least nine towns in southern Lebanon. The Israeli military would not disclose the locations of its troops.

In response to the onslaught, Hezbollah announced it had carried out a series of strikes against Israeli military and industrial sites.

The group said on Wednesday it targeted a military base near Tel Aviv and a naval base in Haifa with swarms of attack drones.

It also claimed to have targeted an aerospace and defence company in central Israel. The Israeli military acknowledged that launches from Lebanon had triggered air raid sirens in central Israel.

Hezbollah also said it struck two Israeli military vehicles in south Lebanon. The Israeli military later confirmed the attack, stating, “Two IDF soldiers were moderately injured as a result of an anti-tank fire toward IDF troops operating in southern Lebanon.”

Published in Dawn, March 5th, 2026