{"id":513601,"date":"2026-03-02T09:39:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T09:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/513601\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T09:39:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T09:39:08","slug":"israel-strikes-hezbollah-in-lebanon-after-iran-allied-group-launches-missiles-over-the-border-lebanon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/513601\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel strikes Hezbollah in Lebanon after Iran-allied group launches missiles over the border | Lebanon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Israel carried out heavy airstrikes on the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut on Monday, after the Iran-backed group launched missiles and drones towards Israel in retaliation for the killing of Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Residents of Beirut were awoken by the sounds of about a dozen blasts at 3am on Monday, as Israel<\/a> struck three different locations in the southern suburbs of the capital.<\/p>\n

The explosions rocked windows around the capital city and were heard from miles away. People in southern Lebanon<\/a> heard warplanes and bombs being dropped as airstrikes were carried out over wide swathes of the south of the country, collapsing buildings in the villages near Tyre, southern Lebanon.<\/p>\n

At least 31 people were killed in the strikes, Lebanon\u2019s health ministry said.<\/p>\n

Hezbollah said in a statement that it had launched a barrage of missiles and drones at the Mishmar al-Karmel missile defence facility near Haifa, around midnight, in \u201cretaliation\u201d for the killing of Khameinei\u201d and \u201cin defence of Lebanon and its people\u201d<\/p>\n

Israel responded just a few hours later, hitting what it described as Hezbollah targets across south Lebanon, the Bekaa valley and the Beirut suburb of Dahieh. The Israeli military claimed the strikes on Dahieh had killed several senior Hezbollah officers.<\/p>\n

\u201cHezbollah opened a campaign against Israel overnight and is fully responsible for any escalation. Any enemy that threatens our security will pay a heavy price,\u201d the chief of the Israeli military Lt Gen Eyal Zamir said in a statement.<\/p>\n

An Israeli military spokesperson issued evacuation orders for 55 different villages and towns across Lebanon, warning people to get at least 1,000 metres away from them as they are near \u201cHezbollah operatives and facilities.\u201d Earlier on Sunday, the Israeli military announced the deployment of 100,000 reservists, many of them along the border with Lebanon.<\/p>\n

People leave in their cars after Israeli strikes on Beirut\u2019s southern suburbs. Photograph: Ahmad Al Kerdi\/Reuters<\/p>\n

Streams of people began to flee Dahieh by car and by foot, and lines of cars began to form outside petrol stations in the southern city of Tyre as residents began to head northwards. The highways from Dahieh to the capital city were gridlocked with scooters and cars driving over rubble and debris from the earlier strikes. In the south, people drove northwards on both sides of the highway to escape the traffic.<\/p>\n

Videos showed the tops of buildings in Dahieh engulfed in flames, while burnt out husks of cars lay at the feet of the crumpled buildings. As they scrambled to flee, witnesses reported seeing rocket barrages flying from south Lebanon towards Israel, in what seemed to be Hezbollah artillery volleys.<\/p>\n

The memory of the 13-month war between Israel and Hezbollah<\/a> that ended in 2024 loomed large in the minds of Lebanese. Fears spread quickly that Dahieh, the Bekaa valley and large parts of the south could be rendered uninhabitable as it was then. Israeli bombed those areas daily during the war and nearly 4,000 people were killed and a million displaced.<\/p>\n

In the early hours of Monday, families and friends quickly devised plans for what they should do and tried to understand what exactly was happening, as the number of displaced people from affected areas in Lebanon grew.<\/p>\n

Cars sit in traffic as residents flee Israeli airstrikes in Dahieh Photograph: Bilal Hussein\/AP<\/p>\n

Lebanon\u2019s government quickly condemned Hezbollah\u2019s decision to bomb Israel without consulting the state. Without naming the militant group by name, Lebanese prime minister Nawaf Salam said he will \u201cnot allow the country to be dragged into new adventures.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rocket fire from southern Lebanon is an irresponsible and suspicious act that jeopardises Lebanon\u2019s security and safety and provides Israel with pretexts to continue its aggression,\u201d Salam said in a post on X.<\/p>\n

For weeks, Lebanese officials had scrambled to prevent Hezbollah from joining any potential war in Iran, as Israel passed messages to its Lebanese counterparts that any attack would engender a wide-ranging response against the entire country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israel carried out heavy airstrikes on the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut on Monday, after the Iran-backed group…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-513601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=513601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}