Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Lebanese people to move away from danger as the Israeli military pounded Hezbollah targets in the country’s south and east on Monday.
He asked the Lebanese citizens to “get out of harm’s way now.”
“Once our operation is finished, you can come back safely to your homes,” Netanyahu said in a video statement shortly after the Israeli army announced it had struck 800 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon.
The Israeli strikes killed 356 people, including 24 children and 42 women, and injured 1,246 in Lebanon on Monday, the Lebanese health minister said, in by far the deadliest cross-border escalation since war erupted in Gaza on October 7.
In his statement to people in Lebanon on Monday, Netanyahu said it was Hezbollah who had endangered their security. “Hezbollah has been using you as human shields. It placed rockets in your living rooms and missiles in your garage,” he said. He asked not to “let Hezbollah endanger your lives and the lives of your loved ones.”
Iran-backed Hezbollah began launching rockets towards Israel in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas in October, after Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza.
