Israel issues a forced evacuation order for the entire Dahiyeh region of Lebanon’s capital, home to hundreds of thousands.
Right-wing Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has threatened to turn the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital into another Gaza Strip, as the Israeli military ordered hundreds of thousands of people to leave their homes in Beirut immediately.
In a video shared online Thursday, Smotrich warned that the Dahiyeh region would soon look “like Khan Younis” in southern Gaza, the enclave destroyed in Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians.
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“The southern suburbs will become like Khan Younis,” said the Israeli minister.
Smotrich’s threat came just hours after the Israeli army issued a forced evacuation order for several areas of south Beirut, sending residents scrambling to gather belongings and quickly leave their homes.
In a post on social media, Israeli army spokesman Avichai Adray ordered the evacuation of people from Burj al-Barajneh, al-Hadat, Haret Hreek and Shia neighborhoods.
“It is unprecedented for the Israeli army to order this forced evacuation order for the southern suburbs of Beirut,” Al Jazeera’s Bernard Smith reported from Beirut, noting that more than 400,000 people live in the area.
“There’s really nowhere for them to go quickly,” Smith said of the Lebanese families who were forced to flee. “There’s gridlock on the roads as people try to leave, but it’s hard to understand how Israel can expect all those people to leave so quickly.”
Israel’s forced evacuation order in Beirut comes a day after the country issued a similar directive to all of southern Lebanon, spurring a wave of mass displacement.
Cross-border fighting resumed on Monday, intensifying after Hezbollah fired rockets toward Israeli territory following an attack on Iran by the United States and Israel that killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The Israeli military has launched widespread air and ground strikes against its northern neighbor, bombing areas across southern Lebanon and Beirut in what it says is an operation against a Lebanese armed group.
For its part, Hezbollah has stepped up its military operations in recent days, saying it was responding to an “Israeli aggression” against the country.
The group has fired dozens of rockets and drones into Israel and targeted Israeli forces stationed inside Lebanese territory.
The death toll has crossed 100
The conflict has left Lebanese civilians reeling, with humanitarian groups warning that Israel’s offensive will have dire consequences for a population already devastated by a sustained barrage of Israeli attacks since the war on Gaza began in October 2023.
At least 102 people have been killed and 638 injured across the country in a wave of Israeli attacks, Lebanon’s health ministry said on Thursday.
Tens of thousands of people have been displaced across Lebanon, with many families from southern Lebanon already seeking safety in overcrowded shelters in Beirut, according to government figures.
Flights at Beirut-Rafik Hariri International Airport were suspended on Thursday amid Israeli threats of further attacks on the Lebanese capital.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Israel’s forced evacuation order for hundreds of thousands of residents of southern Lebanon “raises serious risks of violations of the laws of war”.
“Calling for the immediate evacuation of everyone living south of the Litani (river) raises serious legal and humanitarian red flags and fears for the safety of civilians,” Ramzi Kais, Lebanon researcher at HRW, said in a statement.
“How will the elderly, the sick and the disabled be able to evacuate immediately? And how will their safety be guaranteed when they leave?”
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