In Pictures

Thousands of people in south Lebanon flee intense Israeli bombardment

The Israeli military announced that it hit some 800 targets, saying it was going after Hezbollah weapons sites.

Cars sit in traffic in Sidon, southern Lebanon as they flee Israeli air strikes hitting places further south. [Mohammed Zaatari/AP Photo]

Israel launched hundreds of air attacks in southern and eastern Lebanon on Monday, killing at least 492 people, as the Israeli military called on residents to immediately evacuate places where it claimed that Hezbollah stores weapons.

Thousands of people fled southern Lebanon, jamming the main highway to Beirut. At least 1,645 people were injured in the attacks, the Health Ministry said.

The Israeli military said it hit more than 1,300 targets linked to Hezbollah weapons sites on Monday. It said it was expanding the operation to include areas of the Bekaa Valley, along Lebanon’s eastern border.

Residents of different villages in southern Lebanon posted photos on social media that they said showed their towns being struck.

The wave of air attacks came a day after Hezbollah fired more than 100 rockets into northern Israel, with some landing near the city of Haifa.

Hezbollah’s rockets were in response to an Israeli air strike on a Beirut suburb on Friday that killed a top Hezbollah military commander and more than a dozen of the group’s members, along with civilians including women and children.

Last week, thousands of communications devices, used mainly by Hezbollah members, exploded in different parts of Lebanon, killing 39 people and wounding nearly 3,000. Lebanon blamed the attacks on Israel, but Israel did not confirm or deny its responsibility.

People in heavy traffic drive north from Lebanon's southern coastal city Sidon as some of them flee Israeli bombardment — Children, women and medics were among the victims of Monday’s attacks. Israel told residents of southern Lebanon to evacuate from homes and other buildings where it claimed Hezbollah had stored weapons. [Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters]

People carry belongings at a beach as they flee, amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces — People carry belongings at a beach as they flee in Tyre, southern Lebanon. Hezbollah and Israel have been trading near daily fire for almost a year, but the Israeli bombardment has ramped up in recent days. [Aziz Taher/Reuters]

People in heavy traffic drive north from Lebanon's southern coastal city Sidon — Lebanese media reported residents receiving text messages telling them to move away from any building where Hezbollah stores arms until further notice. The Lebanese group has been firing rockets into Israel since October 8 in support of Palestinians amid a devastating onslaught by Israeli forces on Gaza. [Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters]

Cars sit in traffic as people flee the southern villages amid ongoing Israeli airstrikes — The warnings were the first of their kind in nearly a year of steadily escalating conflict that has forced the displacement of communities on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border. [Mohammed Zaatari/AP Photo]

A Syrian family sit with their belongings in the back of a truck as they wait in a traffic jam in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon — Members of a Syrian family sit with their belongings in the back of a truck as they wait in a traffic jam in Sidon. [Mahmoud Zayyat/AFP]

A man and children ride a motorcycle as people in heavy traffic drive north from Lebanon's southern coastal city Sidon as some of them flee Israeli bombardment — A man and children ride a motorcycle amid heavy traffic in Sidon. [Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters]