Israel's evacuation warnings for Lebanon; deadly strikes on Gaza continue

Lebanese official media said people were receiving Israeli phone warnings telling them to evacuate and Information Minister Ziad Makary's office told reporters it had received one of the calls.

The reports came after the Israeli military told people in Lebanon to move away from Hezbollah targets and vowed to carry out more "extensive and precise" strikes against the group.

It was the Israeli military's first official warning issued to Lebanese people since the war in Gaza started nearly a year ago.

'Psychological war'

Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA) said that "citizens in Beirut and a number of areas are receiving landline telephone warning messages whose source is the Israeli enemy, asking them to quickly evacuate where they are."

It called the phone warnings "part of the psychological war that the enemy has adopted."

Minister Makary's office, located in Beirut near several other ministries, said it received a landline call and when staff responded, a "recorded message" told them to evacuate the building in order to avoid strikes.

"We advise civilians from Lebanese villages located in and next to buildings and areas used by Hezbollah for military purposes, such as those used to store weapons, to immediately move out of harm's way for their own safety," Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a media briefing.

"The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) will engage in extensive and precise strikes against terror targets which have been embedded widely throughout Lebanon."

Hagari said the military had launched new strikes against Hezbollah sites since Monday morning.

"The strikes will go on for the near future," he said.

The Israeli military launched approximately 150 airstrikes across Lebanon on Monday morning. 

According to Lebanon's state media and a resident interviewed by reporters, a rocket struck an unoccupied mountainside to the east of Byblos, a Lebanese port city. 

The area was not hit previously by air strikes in months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

Additionally, Lebanese media reported that one civilian lost their life due to Israeli attacks in eastern and southern Lebanon, while 17 others were injured.

Meanwhile, Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has ordered all members to stop using any type of communication devices after thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah in Lebanon blew up in deadly attacks last week, two senior Iranian security officials told reporters.

'Negative impact' on truce talks

Egypt's foreign minister warned of the risk of an all-out regional war as fighting between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah intensified, saying the escalation "negatively impacted" Gaza truce talks.

Badr Abdelatty spoke ahead of an annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations, with a chorus of international powers calling on Israel and Hezbollah to step back from the brink. 

"There is great concern about... the possibility of an escalation in the region leading to an all-out regional war," he told reporters at UN headquarters, adding that the latest spike in violence "negatively impacted" ceasefire negotiations.

Qatar, Egypt and the United States have for months tried to secure a ceasefire and hostage release deal in Gaza, which diplomats repeatedly said would help calm regional tensions. 

"All the components of the deal are ready," Abdelatty said. "The problem is the lack of political will on the Israeli side," he added.

Abdelatty also blamed Israel's "provocative policies" for the intensified fighting with Hezbollah. 

Israel says its first priority is to ensure the safety and security of its citizens.

Israel continues to attack schools

As Israeli forces strike eastern and southern Lebanon, attacks have also continued across the Gaza Strip.

Many Palestinians, including children, were wounded in an Israeli drone attack on the town of Khuza'a, east of Khan Younis, Al Jazeera reported.

Israeli forces have also continued their raids on the village of Haris, west of Salfit, in the occupied West Bank, for the second day, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa.

The head of the Haris village council Omar Samara told Wafa that Israeli soldiers harassed civilians and searched their homes, arresting about 70 people last night, most of them children. Samara said the army stormed schools, arresting a number of students and teachers.

Anadolu Agency quoted the civil defense in Gaza as saying that at least eight Palestinians, including two women and five children, were killed in Israeli shelling of a house and a school housing displaced people.

The attack on Khalid bin al-Walid school in the Nuseirat refugee camp reportedly killed three Palestinians, according to local authorities. It represents the third attack on a school in two days.  Israel's military says it targeted a Hamas command centre in a building previously used as a school.

At least seven Palestinians were reported killed in an Israeli attack on the Kafr Qasim School in Gaza City on Sunday and at least 21 others in the bombing of Zeitoun School on Saturday. Israel does not give figures for those killed in its attacks and independent groups are rarely able to access sites to confirm the number of victims.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah supporters in Lebanon turned out in force for the funeral of a top commander killed in an Israeli air strike, in a major show of support for the group.

Hezbollah has hailed commander Ibrahim Aqil as "one of its great leaders", saying the 61-year-old died in an "Israeli assassination... in Beirut's southern suburbs" on Friday.

Aqil headed Hezbollah's elite Radwan unit, and had been on a US sanctions list for nearly a decade.

Israel said Friday's "targeted strike" killed Aqil and several other commanders in the Radwan Force.

Men and women, many wearing black, gathered for the packed ceremony in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital where Hezbollah enjoys steadfast support. Some mourners carried photos of Hezbollah members who have been killed.

Al Jazeera's forced closure 'a criminal act'

Armed and masked Israeli forces raided the office of global news channel Al Jazeera in the occupied West Bank and issued a 45-day closure order.

It was the latest salvo in a long-running feud between the Qatar-based broadcaster and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government which has worsened during the war in Gaza.

Since the war began on October 7, Al Jazeera has aired continuous on-the-ground reporting on the effects of Israel's military campaign.

Israel's military has repeatedly accused journalists from the Qatar-based network of links to Hamas or Islamic Jihad. Al Jazeera has fiercely denied these accusations and said Israel systematically targets its employees in the Gaza Strip.

Four Al Jazeera journalists have been killed since the war in Gaza began, and the network's office in the territory has been bombed.

Al Jazeera called the Israeli raid "a criminal act" and an attack on press freedom.

Shuttering the Al Jazeera office "confirms the (Israeli) occupation's efforts to disrupt the work of the media in conveying the occupation's violations against the Palestinian people," said Mohammed Abu al-Rub, director of the government media office for the Palestinian Authority which has partial administrative control in the West Bank.

Meanwhile, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned the risk of transforming Lebanon into "another Gaza," as hostilities flare between Israel and Hezbollah.  

Speaking to CNN ahead of the annual gathering of world leaders at the UN, Guterres cast doubt on the possibility of a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas after eleven months of war.

"It is for me clear that both sides are not interested in a ceasefire. And that is a tragedy, because this is a war that must stop," Guterres said. "Neither the government of Israel nor Hamas really want the ceasefire."

Türkiye will submit evidence about Israel's killing of a Türkish-American woman in the West Bank this month to the United Nations Security Council, International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC), its justice minister said.

Aysenur Ezgi Eygi was killed on September 6 as she took part in a protest against settlement expansion in the West Bank amid the war in Gaza.

Israel has acknowledged that its troops shot the activist, but says it was an unintentional act during a demonstration that turned violent.

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