In less than two weeks, an Israeli escalation against the Lebanese group Hizbollah has forced more than 400,000 people to flee across the border into Syria, the government of Lebanon announced Monday.
According to a government crisis unit, more than 102,000 of the people who fled between September 23 and Saturday were Lebanese, and more than 300,000 were Syrians returning to their war-torn nation.
On the first anniversary of the Gaza war, which has sparked fighting throughout the Middle East, Hizbollah launched missiles towards Haifa, Israel’s third-largest city, Monday as Israeli forces appeared ready to increase ground incursions into south Lebanon. According to Hizbollah, it used “Fadi 1” missiles to target a military installation south of Haifa and then struck Tiberias, which is 65 kilometres away.
Later in the day, Hizbollah claimed to have launched a second round of missiles, targeting regions north of Haifa. As of 5:00 p.m. on Monday, the Israeli military said that approximately 135 rockets had entered Israeli territory.
There were two recorded injuries farther south in central Israel, and ten in the Haifa region.
The military said that two Israeli troops were killed in border-area combat, bringing the total number of military deaths in Lebanon to eleven, and that the air force was heavily attacking Hizbollah sites in south Lebanon.
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