Israel appeared to expand its military operations in Lebanon on Friday, issuing new evacuation warnings across the south and bombing a border crossing with Syria, hours after a series of airstrikes shook the Lebanese capital, Beirut.
One of the Beirut strikes targeted a meeting of Hezbollah’s senior leadership at around midnight on Thursday. The meeting included Hashem Safieddine, the presumed successor of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, whom Israel assassinated last week. It was not immediately clear if Mr. Safieddine had been killed.
Israel said on Friday that a separate airstrike the previous day had killed Mohammad Rashid Sakafi, who it identified as a commander responsible for Hezbollah’s telecommunications division. Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia and political party backed by Iran, did not immediately comment on the claim.
As Israeli warplanes pummeled Beirut, soldiers were waging a ground invasion in southern Lebanon targeting what military officials said were Hezbollah sites in the rugged border area.
New evacuation orders issued on Friday brought to 87 the total number of Lebanese communities whose residents Israel has told to leave. Many are to the north of a swath of southern Lebanon that was designated a buffer zone by a 2006 U.N. Security Council resolution after the last Israel-Hezbollah war.
Israeli fighter jets also struck near of Lebanon’s Masnaa border crossing with Syria, cutting off a road used by hundreds of thousands of people fleeing Lebanon, Bachir Khodr, the governor of the Baalbek-Hermel region, said on Friday.
The Israeli military said the area — which lies on the highway linking Beirut and Damascus near the geographic center of the country — also contained a two-mile-long tunnel that was the main route used by Hezbollah to bring weapons into Lebanon from Syria, another Iranian ally.
The Israeli airstrike left a crater in the road but people were still crossing into Syria on foot, Rula Amin, a spokeswoman for the U.N. refugee agency, told reporters by video link from Beirut on Friday. “It’s a testament to the fear and panic that is driving people to cross into Syria,” she said.
In Israel on Friday, air-raid sirens sounded across much of the north as Hezbollah continued to fire rockets at the region. Residents reported hearing loud explosions in the sky — possibly from air defenses intercepting rockets — but Israeli authorities did not immediately report casualties or significant damage.
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