Israel Says It Killed A Top Hezbollah Commander In Strike On Beirut

BEIRUT (AP) — Israel said it killed a top commander with Hezbollah’s missile and rocket unit Tuesday as the Israeli military traded fire with Hezbollah again and the death toll from a massive Israeli bombing campaign climbed to nearly 560 people.

Thousands fled from southern Lebanon with the two sides on the brink of all-out war. In Beirut and the coastal city of Sidon, displaced families slept in shelters hastily set up in schools. With hotels quickly booked to capacity or rooms priced beyond the means of many families, those who did not find shelter slept in their cars, in parks or along the seaside.

Issa Baydoun fled the village of Shihine in southern Lebanon when it was bombed and drove to Beirut with his extended family. They slept in the vehicles on the side of the road after discovering the shelters were full.

“We struggled a lot on the road just to get here,” said Baydoun, who rejected Israel’s contention that it hit only military targets. “We evacuated our homes because Israel is targeting civilians and attacking them.”

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Lebanon said one of its staffers and her young son were among those killed Monday in the Bekaa region, while a UNHCR-contracted cleaner was killed in a strike in the south. The husband of a staffer and one of her children were seriously wounded.

Well-wishers offered empty apartments or rooms in their houses in social media posts. Volunteers set up a kitchen to cook meals for the displaced at an empty Beirut gas station that first became a hub for volunteers after the city’s devastating 2020 port explosion.

In the eastern city of Baalbek, the state-run National News Agency reported that lines formed at bakeries and gas stations as residents