Photos show the chaos and devastation left in the wake of Israel’s deadly blitz on Hezbollah’s missiles

Hezbollah and Israel have been trading fire across the southern Lebanese border for nearly a year amid the ongoing war in Gaza. The fighting has forced more than 160,000 people out of their homes on both sides of the border and Israeli officials say their objective is to achieve enough security that displaced Israelis can return.

Last Tuesday, Hezbollah pagers and handheld radios mysteriously exploded, killing more than three dozen people — two of whom were children — and injuring about 3,000 with ties to Hezbollah operations.

The militant group accused Israel of the communication-devices-turned-bombs, but Israel denied any involvement. However, US officials told The New York Times that Israel hid explosive material within Taiwanese-made pagers imported into Lebanon, with a switch that could remotely detonate them.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said the militant group “endured a severe and cruel blow” in the wake of the device attacks as Israel continued to launch airstrikes against the militant group in Lebanon, one of which killed top Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqeel and 10 other senior officers.

Over the weekend, Hezbollah retaliated for the pager attacks by targeting military facilities located in northern Israel with more than 100 rockets, missiles, and drones.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the military’s airstrikes on Monday were intended for Hezbollah’s “rockets and missiles are aimed directly at our cities, directly at our citizens.”

“Israel’s war is not with you. It’s with Hezbollah,” Netanyahu added in the statement.

Mere hours before the Israeli airstrikes rained down on southern Lebanon, people received text messages and automated calls from the Israel military warning them to evacuate immediately and leave areas near Hezbollah weapon sites.

It marked the first time the Israeli military issued such warnings to Lebanese residents, an Israeli military official told NBC News.

Israel is obligated to give civilians enough time and warning to flee potential attack sites, as well as an obligation to discern civilian and military targets, Ramzi Kaiss, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, told The New York Times.

International human rights groups criticized the warnings from the Israeli military, pointing out that civilians wouldn’t know where the militant group was keeping its weapons caches.

“Civilians can’t be reasonably expected to know where military objectives are in order to evacuate from those areas,” Kaiss said.

IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said during a televised press conference that the airstrikes struck more than 1,300 targets across Lebanon, including sites storing cruise missiles, heavy rockets, medium- and short-range rockets, and drones.

Hagari said the airstrikes largely targeted civilian homes where Hezbollah was storing weapons, showing video of Israel bombs purportedly setting off secondary explosions from a structure in a Lebanese village.

Both Israel and Hezbollah are obligated under humanitarian law not to “co-locate” military assets in civilian areas to ensure “risks to the civilian population from an attack should not outweigh the anticipated military advantage,” The Washington Post reported.

Though Israel assured the strikes were aimed at Hezbollah sites, at least 558 people were killed, the highest daily death toll in Lebanon since 2006.

While the figures did not differentiate between Hezbollah combatants and civilians among those who were killed, Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abaid said a large number of them were unarmed people, including women and children.

“The overwhelming majority of those who fell during the attacks that happened yesterday, they were safe and unarmed people in their homes,” Abaid said during a Tuesday press conference.

The minister added that the airstrikes also hit hospitals, medical centers, and ambulances in addition to the residential suburbs outside Beirut.

IDF chief Lt. Gen Herzi Halevi said the airstrikes were “proactive,” attempting to diminish the weapons cache and infrastructure that Hezbollah has built over the last two decades.

“We are not looking for wars. We are looking to take down the threats,” Hagari said. “We will do whatever is necessary to do to achieve this mission.”

Chaos and confusion ensued as Lebanese people attempted to heed the airstrike warnings from the Israeli military.

Mohanad Hage Ali, a fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center, told The Times that Israel was employing a “Gaza-like approach” in its airstrikes Monday, recalling the successive evacuation orders Israeli forces issued since October 2023 to move displaced Palestinians to safer areas ahead of its retaliatory air and ground strikes against Hamas.

However, the Israeli military later attacked the areas it deemed safe, claiming it was targeting Palestinian militant operations.

Thousands of people fled from their homes in southern Lebanon, crowding streets and highways in cars packed with their belongings ahead of the airstrikes.

Institutes like schools and museums were turned into makeshift evacuation shelters as volunteers race to gather medicine, food, water, and other essential supplies as they brace for an influx of people displaced by the cross-border fire.

“As the escalation of hostilities in south Lebanon drags on longer than we had hoped, it has led to further displacement and deepened the already critical needs,” Imran Riza, the UN coordinator for Lebanon, said in a statement.

More than 100,000 Lebanese and 60,000 Israelis have fled their homes along the countries’ borders as Israeli forces and Hezbollah continue to engage in tit-for-tat attacks.