The Japan Times - Israel strikes Tyre in south Lebanon after evacuation warnings

Israel has carried out strikes across Lebanon and launched a ground invasion in the south since March 2, when Hezbollah entered the war in the Middle East on the side of its backer Iran.

The Israeli army struck three buildings it had warned people to evacuate, according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency (NNA).

An AFP correspondent said a missile hit an 11-storey building northeast of Tyre, completely destroying it and reducing it to a pile of rubble that covered a nearby gas station.

A second raid on a five-storey building near the city levelled half of it, leaving the other half standing.

The third strike was on the Burj al-Shamali Palestinian refugee camp, southeast of the city.

Tens of thousands of people have left Tyre, but around 20,000 remain, including 15,000 displaced from surrounding villages, despite Israeli evacuation warnings covering most of the city and a broad swathe of the south.

Saturday's Israeli warning followed strikes that wounded at least 11 people, including three civil defence members, and damaged a major hospital, the health ministry in Beirut said.

The director of the Lebanese Italian Hospital told the NNA that it would "remain open to provide the necessary medical care" despite the damage.

Overnight strikes destroyed two buildings nearby, an AFP correspondent saw, shattering windows and also causing suspended ceilings to collapse in the hospital, management said.

A wave of attacks hit the Tyre area on Saturday, including one on its port that struck a small boat and damaged others moored nearby, the correspondent said.

Another Israeli airstrike targeted and completely destroyed a mosque in the town of Baraashit in the Bint Jbeil district, the NNA reported.

- 'Unacceptable' attacks -

Dawn strikes also targeted Beirut's southern suburbs, a largely evacuated Hezbollah stronghold that has been attacked repeatedly during more than a month of war.

In a statement on Saturday, Israel's military said it had "completed an additional wave of strikes targeting command centres belonging to the Quds Force Lebanon corps in Beirut", referring to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' foreign operations arm, and "two headquarters of the (Palestinian Islamic Jihad)".

After attacking a bridge in the West Bekaa region in eastern Lebanon on Friday "to prevent the transfer of reinforcements and military equipment", Israel hit it again on Saturday, destroying it completely, the NNA said.

West Bekaa is right above Lebanon's south, where Israeli troops have been advancing on the ground.

The NNA also reported that, in Shebaa near the eastern side of the Israeli border, Israeli forces abducted a man at around 3:00 am on Saturday.

It was at least the third time Israeli forces have seized someone from south Lebanon after infiltrating their home since the war with Hezbollah began.

The Iran-backed group claimed responsibility Saturday for a series of attacks on northern Israeli towns and Israeli troops in Lebanese border towns, particularly Marun al-Ras, Hula and Ainata.

The war has displaced upwards of a million people in Lebanon and killed more than 1,400 people in the country, including 54 medics and three Indonesian UN peacekeepers in the south.

On Saturday, a strike on al-Hawsh near Tyre wounded 18 people, and a strike on Habbush in the Nabatiyeh district killed at least two children and wounded 22 people, according to Lebanon's health ministry.

The United Nations force said on Friday that three peacekeepers were wounded in a blast inside a UN facility near Odaisse, and were rushed to hospital.

Jakarta slammed the incident as "unacceptable" after the UN office there confirmed the wounded were Indonesian.

Indonesia's government said "these events underscore the urgent need to strengthen protection for UN peacekeeping forces amid an increasingly dangerous conflict situation".

On Saturday, a UN security official told AFP that Israeli forces destroyed 17 surveillance cameras linked to UNIFIL's main headquarters in Naqura.

The UN peacekeeping force has been caught in the crossfire in southern Lebanon since the start of the war, with Hezbollah launching attacks on Israel and its troops, and Israeli forces pushing into border towns.

S.Fujimoto--JT