Israeli Army Issues Evacuation Order for Beirut Neighbourhood Amid Hezbollah Strike Concerns

The Israeli Army issued an evacuation order for residents of a southern Beirut neighbourhood, anticipating a possible strike on Hezbollah targets.

The residents reported hearing gunfire across the area. (File image.)

Source : Getty Images

The Israeli Army on Sunday issued an evacuation order for residents of a southern Beirut neighbourhood, reports news agency Reuters. This is the first such warning in almost a month, in anticipation of a possible strike on what it says are Hezbollah targets.

Avichay Adraee, the spokesperson of the Israeli army, posted on X that residents should evacuate several buildings in the Hadath neighbourhood and move “at least 300 metres away”.

According to news agency Reuters, the residents reported hearing gunfire across the area, which they said they believed was intended to warn people to leave.

“To everyone located in the building marked in red on the attached map, and the surrounding buildings: you are near facilities belonging to Hezbollah,” Adraee wrote in a post that included a map of the potential targets.

An Israeli air strike, earlier this month, killed four people, including a Hezbollah official, in Beirut’s southern suburbs – the second Israeli strike on a Hezbollah-controlled area of the Lebanese capital in five days. The attacks in the southern suburbs of Beirut have resumed at a time of broader escalation in hostilities in the region, with Israel having restarted Gaza strikes after a two-month truce and the US hitting the Iran-aligned Houthis of Yemen in a bid to get them to stop attacking Red Sea shipping.

Israel has dealt severe blows to Hezbollah in the war, has killed thousands of its fighters, has destroyed much of its arsenal, and has eliminated its top leadership.

(With input from Reuters)