ISRAEL’S military ordered residents of dozens of border villages in southern Lebanon today to evacuate “immediately” as air strikes on suburbs of Beirut intensified and Hezbollah claimed more attacks.

Lebanon was dragged early on Monday into the war in the Middle East, which erupted following the unprovoked United States-Israeli attacks on Iran, when Hezbollah fired rockets and drones into northern Israel.

This triggered Israeli retaliatory air strikes on different parts of the country that killed more than 50 people and wounded about 300.

The conflict also displaced tens of thousands of people from southern Lebanon, the eastern Bekaa Valley and Beirut’s southern suburbs.

The Israeli military issued a statement today telling people living in dozens of villages in southern Lebanon close to the border with Israel to evacuate and move “immediately” north of the Litani River.

The Israeli army’s Arabic spokesperson warned on X that if people decide to move south of the river, they will be endangering their lives.

Also today, the Israeli military issued several warnings to people to evacuate buildings in Beirut’s southern suburbs, which were struck shortly afterward.

Hezbollah said today that it carried out several attacks on Israel, including two in which the group claimed that it used precision-guided missiles.

In eastern Lebanon, the main border crossing with Syria was briefly closed today after Lebanese officials received a warning of an impending Israeli strike, which officials later said turned out to be a false alarm.

Local media and border authorities report that more than 10,000 civilians have been forced to flee Lebanon for Syria in the face of the intensified Israeli attacks with many thousands being forced to wait for hours in dire conditions to get across the border.

Mohammed al-Qassem, the public relations director for the Jdeidet Yabous border crossing, said anyone trying to cross the border needed to own property in Syria, be married to Syrians or hold dual nationality.