Israel has launched massive attacks on the southern suburbs of Beirut just hours after its army ordered the entire population of the area – more than 500,000 people – to evacuate immediately.
The Israel Defense Forces had told all residents in the area to “save their lives and evacuate their homes immediately”, causing an exodus of the population from the Lebanese capital in scenes of panic, before its warplanes launched strikes against what they claimed were Hezbollah targets in the area. The area covered by the order included several hospitals and government ministries.
The attacks marked a significant escalation in Israel’s escalating offensive in Lebanon, which began after Hezbollah fired missiles and drones at Israel on Monday.
Footage from Thursday night showed smoke rising over the Dahiya neighborhood. Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the attacks would make the Beirut suburb “look like (Gaza’s) Khan Younis, a section of southern Gaza that has been almost completely destroyed by Israeli bombs.
The same day, Tehran launched retaliatory airstrikes against Israel and US bases across the region, and US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth promised further escalation. “If you think you’ve seen something, wait,” he said.
At the White House, Donald Trump said members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) would receive immunity if they dropped their weapons, but would otherwise face “guaranteed death.” He said the offer of immunity extended to Iran’s military and police.
Trump said he should participate in the election of Iran’s next supreme leader to replace Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an airstrike between the United States and Israel on the first day of the war.
Trump said Mojtaba Khamenei, the 56-year-old son of the late supreme leader – the country’s head of state and commander in chief – would be an “unacceptable” choice.
“We want to participate in the process of choosing the person who will lead Iran in the future,” Trump told Reuters. “We don’t have to come back every five years and do this over and over again.”
Iran expanded its attack campaign, firing more ballistic missiles toward Israel, attacking an airport in Azerbaijan and raising fears that the conflict, now affecting 14 countries across the Middle East and beyond, could spread further.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Thursday that the decision to assassinate Khamenei was made in November, long before the breakdown of negotiations over the nuclear program that Donald Trump said led the United States to launch a pre-emptive strike against Iran. The original schedule was for Israel to attack Khamenei in mid-2026, but Netanyahu moved up the schedule after unrest broke out in Iran, Katz said.
The claim could bolster Trump’s critics, who say Israel had dragged the United States into a major Middle East war with Iran. Secretary of State Marco Rubio previously said that the United States launched the attack on Iran because it expected to be attacked after the Israeli attack.
Katz has also said that Khamenei’s successors will be “unequivocal targets for elimination.”
Thursday’s sweeping evacuation order for southern Beirut was unprecedented in its scale: even during the 13-month war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2024, no such sweeping evacuation order was issued.
Traffic was at a standstill across the city and thousands of people resorted to walking, with women pushing strollers with babies through traffic. Families asked rescue services to help remove elderly people who could not leave the house on their own.
The Israeli military spokesman provided pre-approved routes to the north and east that he said people should use to flee, a tactic reminiscent of evacuation orders Israel issued in Gaza.
At least 102 people have been killed and 638 injured in Lebanon by Israeli airstrikes, Lebanon’s Health Ministry reported ahead of Thursday night’s bombing. The war, now in its sixth day, has also killed at least 1,230 people in Iran and about a dozen in Israel. Six American soldiers have died.
The evacuation order was issued just one day after the Israeli army ordered all residents to flee the area south of the Litani River, which compromises around 10% of the country.
Israeli and Hezbollah soldiers were fighting in southern Lebanon, according to UN peacekeepers in the area, as Israel continued its retaliation campaign against the pro-Iran force that launched missiles at Israel on Monday.
The United States and Israel continued their bombing raids on Iran, attacking ballistic missile launchers, weapons depots and key security facilities on Thursday.
The Israeli military also warned residents in eastern areas of Tehran to evacuate, while Iranian media reported explosions across the capital. “Today is worse than yesterday,” one city resident told Reuters. “We have nowhere to go. It’s like a war zone. Help us.”
Sri Lanka said its navy had recovered at least 87 bodies after a US submarine sank an Iranian warship, the IRIS Dena, on Wednesday. Thirty-two sailors were rescued out of a total crew of nearly 130. The country reported that another Iranian ship had arrived in its waters, without giving further details.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reacted with fury to the US sinking of the Dena, accusing it of carrying out a “maritime atrocity”. “Mark my words: The United States will come to bitterly regret (the) precedent it has set,” Araghchi said in a post on X, while a senior Iranian cleric called for demanding “Trump’s blood” on state television.
Iran’s retaliatory strike campaign has hit targets as far away as Cyprus and created the biggest disruption to global travel since Covid, as countries closed their airspace and caused oil prices to surge.
Gulf countries reported more incoming Iranian projectiles throughout the day, which Iran said were aimed at US bases and personnel stationed there. A drone was shot down near Al Dhafra air base in the United Arab Emirates, injuring six people when shrapnel fell. Qatar said there was a missile attack on the capital, Doha, and Saudi Arabia announced it had destroyed a drone. A tanker was attacked off the coast of Kuwait, but it was unclear if the ship was damaged.
In Azerbaijan, a drone attack injured four people near an airport in Nakhchivan, in an area bordering Iran, while another drone fell near a school. Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev said Iran had committed a “baseless act of terrorism and aggression” and said the military was prepared to retaliate.
Tehran denied the accusations and the general staff of the Iranian armed forces denounced the accusations as unfounded.
Iran also attacked the headquarters of Iranian Kurdish forces in northern Iraq while increasing its attacks on Kurdish forces in Iran and Iraq. The attacks came as the United States and Israel moved forward with an apparent plan to help thousands of Kurdish fighters advance toward Iran as part of a ground operation.
