At least 50 people in Lebanon have been killed after Israel unleashed its most widespread wave of air strikes against Hezbollah, according to Lebanon's health ministry.
"We are deepening our attacks in Lebanon, the actions will continue until we achieve our goal to return the northern residents safely to their homes," Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said in a video published by his office on Monday.
"These are days in which the Israeli public will have to show composure."
He was speaking after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) targeted Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon's south, eastern Bekaa Valley and northern region near Syria.
The latest attacks came amid some of the heaviest cross-border exchanges of fire in almost a year of conflict raging alongside the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
Earlier, Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee said that air strikes on houses in Lebanon, in which he said "Hezbollah hid weapons", were imminent.
A text sent to residents of southern Lebanon read: "If you are present in a building which contains weapons for Hezbollah, move away from the village until further notice."
Later, residents of southern Lebanon received calls from a Lebanese number ordering them to immediately distance themselves 1,000 metres from any post used by Hezbollah, a Reuters reporter in the south, who received the call, said.
Evacuation calls have been received on phones as far away as the Lebanese capital, Beirut.
Lebanese Information Minister Ziad Makary said his ministry had received a similar call ordering the building to evacuate, but said the ministry would do no such thing.
"This is a psychological war," Mr Makary told Reuters.
A Lebanese person living in Beirut's Manara area said her family received a call on their landline.
"So they were freaking out. I am freaking out as well because we thought somehow the area we live in is safe because we're surrounded by ambassadors," the person said.
"The Saudi embassy is very close, like two minutes walking distance from us, but apparently they are targeting everyone now. It was a long 30-40 second message."
In a televised statement earlier, Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari issued a similar warning and said it was being "distributed in Arabic on all networks and platforms in Lebanon".
Asked by reporters about a possible Israeli ground incursion into Lebanon, Rear Admiral Hagari said "we will do whatever is needed" in order to return evacuated residents of northern Israel to their homes safely, a war priority for the Israeli government.
He presented in a media briefing an aerial video of what he described as Hezbollah operatives trying to launch cruise missiles from a civilian house in Lebanon, and the subsequent Israeli strike moments before it was launched.
"Hezbollah is endangering you. Endangering you and your families," Rear Admiral Hagari said.
The UNIFIL peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon had "seen an intensification of bombardments throughout the area of operations, close to the Blue Line but also deeper south", spokesperson Andrea Tenenti told Reuters, referring to the line demarcating the Lebanese-Israeli border.
There was no immediate comment from Hezbollah.
Intense wave of air strikes
The Israeli military said it struck 300 targets in Lebanon in one of the most intense barrages of air strikes in nearly a year of fighting against Hezbollah.
Lebanon's health ministry said at least 50 people were killed and more than 300 wounded, including children, women and medics.
Reuters and Associated Press journalists reported heavy air strikes targeting many areas on Monday morning, including some far from the border.
Hezbollah's al-Manar television reported Israeli air strikes targeting the outskirts of many towns and villages in the south and the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon, and the Hermel area in northern Lebanon.
The Gaza war and the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah have raised concerns that the United States and Iran, which has proxies across the region, could get sucked into a wider conflict.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on X on Monday that he had spoken with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin about the military's latest strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
"We also discussed the wider regional situation and the threats posed by Iran and its proxies," he added.
Earlier 'unauthorised' warning
Last week, allegedly unofficial flyers were dropped on a village in southern Lebanon urging residents to evacuate north "until the war was over."
They displayed a map of Lebanon divided — mostly along roadways — into numbered areas, in a similar way to the block map of Gaza.
The three areas closest to the border with the tip of Israel and the Golan Heights were highlighted in red, with arrows pointing about five kilometres north.
The village of Wazzani, where the flyers were seen, is inside the specified area labelled on the map, which is titled "to the residents of areas 1-3".
The attached message read: "To all residents and refugees in the area of Wata el Khiyam. Hezbollah is firing from your area. You must leave your homes immediately and head north of the Khiam area until four o'clock and not return to the area until the war is over. Those are remain in this area after this hour will be considered a terrorist element and their blood will be spilled. The Israel Defense Forces will do everything in its power in your area to make sure it is empty of residents."
The IDF claimed this release was "unauthorised", pinning the move on the commander of a local brigade.
It said the commander had gained access to templates and Arabic translations and managed to use some drones to drop the flyers over the villages, without official IDF permission.
Speaking to ABC News, a military spokesperson would not confirm if residents in the affected areas had been told the message was not an official IDF communique.
The UN peacekeeping mission on the border, UNIFIL, said it contacted the IDF and was told it was investigating.
"We reiterate that targeting civilians, for any reason, is a violation of international humanitarian law. Threats to civilians, by any actor, are unacceptable," said Kandice Ardiel, UNIFIL deputy spokesperson.
UNIFIL (the United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon), is tasked with monitoring and preventing hostility along the Israel-Lebanon armistice line and de facto border.
10 killed by strikes, rain floods refugee camps in Gaza
In Gaza, two strikes by Israeli forces killed at least 10 Palestinians, including four children, medics said, while heavy rains flooded tent encampments.
Palestinian health officials said at least five Palestinians were killed at a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in Nuseirat, one of the Gaza Strip's eight historic refugee camps.
The Israeli military said it targeted a Hamas command centre embedded inside a compound that previously served as a school.
Later on Monday, an Israeli air strike on a house in the city of Deir Al-Balah, where a million people have taken shelter, killed a woman and four children, medics said. There was no immediate Israeli army comment on the incident.
The strikes followed heavy overnight rains that flooded tents, washed some of them away, and forced families out of their sleep.
Some placed water buckets on the ground to protect mats from leaks and dug trenches to drain water away from their tents. The price of new tents and plastic sheeting to prevent leaks shot up.
Ahmed Al-Burai, 30, said people made their tents of used sacks of flour, worn-out clothes, and nylon bags. As soon as it rained, the water and wind blew many tents away and flooded others.
"Everything is drowned, the blankets, the food, and the people in just a few hours of rain," Mr Burai told Reuters over the phone from Al-Mawasi, a humanitarian-designated area in the southern Gaza Strip.
More shelters and supplies to help people cope with the coming winter were needed, UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA said.
"As autumn begins, plastic and fabric are not enough to protect people against the rain and the cold," the relief agency posted on X.
Most of Gaza's 2.3 million have been displaced in nearly a year of warfare as Israeli air and artillery strikes have reduced much of the Palestinian enclave to rubble.
More than 41,300 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli assault, according to the Gaza health ministry.
The war, the deadliest bout in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was triggered on October 7, 2023 when Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostage, according to Israeli tallies.
ABC/wires
