Israeli strikes pound Lebanese coastal city after residents evacuate

By MOHAMMED ZAATARI and KAREEM CHEHAYEB

TYRE, Lebanon (AP) — Israeli jets struck multiple buildings in Lebanon’s southern coastal city of Tyre on Wednesday, sending up large clouds of black smoke, while Hezbollah confirmed that a top official widely expected to be the militant group’s next leader had been killed in an Israeli strike.

The state-run National News Agency reported that an Israeli strike on the nearby town of Maarakeh killed three people. There were no reports of casualties in Tyre, where the Israeli military had issued evacuation warnings prior to the strikes.

Hezbollah meanwhile fired another barrage of rockets into Israel, including two that set off air raid sirens in Tel Aviv before being intercepted. A cloud of smoke could be seen in the sky from the hotel where U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was staying on his latest visit to the region to try to renew cease-fire talks.

The group confirmed that Hashem Safieddine had been killed in an announcement Wednesday, one day after Israel said it had killed him in a strike earlier this month in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

Safieddine, a powerful cleric within the party ranks, had been expected to succeed Hassan Nasrallah, one of the group’s founders, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike last month.

Hezbollah’s statement said Safieddine had “joined his brother, our most noble and precious martyr,” Nasrallah.

The militant group began firing rockets, missiles and drones into Israel, drawing retaliatory airstrikes, after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack out of Gaza triggered the war there. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

All-out war erupted in Lebanon last month, and Israeli strikes killed Nasrallah, and most of his senior commanders. Israeli ground forces invaded southern Lebanon at the beginning of October.

Tyre, a provincial capital, had largely been spared in the Israel-Hezbollah war, but strikes in an around the city have intensified recently.

The 2,500-year-old city, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of Beirut, is known for its pristine beaches, ancient harbor and imposing Roman ruins and hippodrome, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is among Lebanon’s largest cities and a vibrant metropolis popular with tourists.

The buildings struck on Wednesday were between several heritage sites, including the hippodrome and a cluster of seaside sites associated with the ancient Phoenicians and the Crusaders.

The Israeli military issued evacuation warnings a couple hours prior for dozens of buildings in the heart of the city. It told residents to move north of the Awali River, dozens of kilometers (miles) to the north.

Avichay Adraee, an Israeli military spokesman, said on the platform X that there were Hezbollah assets in the area of the evacuation warning, without elaborating or providing evidence.

The city is in southern Lebanon, where the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah has a strong presence, and its legislators are members of the group or its allies. But Tyre is also home to civilians with no ties to the group, including a sizable Christian community.

First responders from Lebanon’s Civil Defense used loudspeakers to warn residents to evacuate the area and helped older adults and others who had difficulty leaving. Ali Safieddine, the head of the Civil Defense, told The Associated Press there were no casualties.

Dr. Wissam Ghazal, a health official in Tyre, said the strikes hit six buildings, flattening four of them, around 2 1/2 hours after the evacuation warnings. People displaced by the strikes could be seen in parks and sitting on the sides of nearby roads.

The head of Tyre’s disaster management unit, Mortada Mhanna, told the AP that although many people had fled, thousands of residents and others who have been displaced from other areas have chosen to stay in the city. Many people, including hundreds of families, previously had fled villages in South Lebanon to seek refuge in shelters in Tyre.

An estimated 15,000 people remain in the city out of a pre-war population of about 100,000, Mhanna said.

“It’s very difficult for many to leave. They’re worried about being subjected to further chaos and displacement,” he said, adding that he and his team had chosen to stay in the city, but “it’s a big risk. It’s not safe here anymore.”

Over 2,500 people have been killed in Lebanon since the conflict began late last year, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Over a million people have fled their homes since September.

On the Israeli side, attacks have killed around 60 people, half of them soldiers. Near-daily rocket barrages have emptied out communities across northern Israel, displacing some 60,000 people. In recent weeks Hezbollah has extended its range, launching scores of rockets every day and regularly targeting the northern Israeli city of Haifa. Most of the projectiles are intercepted or fall in open areas.

In Gaza, the Israeli military has pressed ahead with a major operation in the northern part of the territory, where the United Nations’ humanitarian office has said Israel has severely restricted aid deliveries. During his visit to the region, Blinken reiterated a warning that hindering aid could force the U.S. to scale back crucial military support for Israel.

Israel’s army said it has arrested over 150 suspected Palestinian fighters, some of whom it said had surrendered, and facilitated the evacuation of another 20,000 residents over the past day from Jabaliya, a refugee camp that has turned into a densely built neighborhood over the decades.

The U.N. estimates 60,000 people have fled the far north of Gaza southwards to Gaza City over more than a two-week period.

A Palestinian resident of Beit Lahiya, near Jabaliya, told The Associated Press that Israel’s military has rounded up hundreds of men in northern Gaza, separating them from the women as families try to flee the area.

Hisham Abu Zaqout, a father of four, said he was held for at least three hours along with dozens of men in a school near a hospital.

The Israeli army says it is trying to uproot Hamas fighters from Jabaliya, as well other parts of northern Gaza, issuing mass evacuation orders there earlier this month. Jabaliya has been the scene of on-and-off fighting between Israeli troops and Hamas fighters for months, leaving parts of it destroyed.

Chehayeb reported from Beirut. Jack Jeffery in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed.