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.