Devastating Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 100 people in Lebanon and injured more than 400, local authorities have reported, as warplanes continue to pound Hezbollah targets across the country.

The Israeli military says it has hit some 300 Hezbollah targets in a matter of hours, including a weapon which was identified as a Russian-made DR-3 missile, which they said was ready to be fired across the border.

Terrified residents in Beirut and elsewhere received calls and texts warning them to move away from Hezbollah targets, with Lebanon’s information minister condemning the alerts as a tactic of ‘psychological war implemented by the enemy’.

Lebanon’s prime minister has accused Israel of waging ‘a war of extermination’, and urged the United Nations to intervene ‘to deter the (Israeli) aggression’, as the Middle East teeters on the edge of all-out conflict.

Huge plumes of smoke have been pictured at multiple sites deep into the country, with rockets fired at areas not previously hit by strikes and witnesses reporting intense bombing raids.

Israel’s defence minister Yoav Gallant confirmed that the IDF was ‘deepening’ attacks in Lebanon and suggested that the situation would intensify, warning in a video message: ‘These are days in which the Israeli public will have to show composure.’

Smoke rises from Israeli shelling on villages in the Nabatiyeh district, seen from the southern town of Marjayoun

Smoke billows over southern Lebanon following Israeli strikes, amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Tyre

Video shared by the IDF claims to show a strike on Hezbollah site, allegedly housing a DR-3 missile which was ready to be fired over the border

The IDF claims it identified a DR-3 cruise missile in a building which was then destroyed in an airstrike

A Lebanese man checks a message received on his mobile phone in Beirut on September 23, 2024, calling people to evacuate the areas ‘where Hezbollah hides its weapons’

A man picks up students after some schools closed early, in Beirut, Lebanon

Smoke billows over southern Lebanon following Israeli strikes, as seen from Burj Qallawiyah

A huge plume of smoke rises over buildings in Tyre, southern Lebanon, following an Israeli strike

People walk at a beach as smoke billows over southern Lebanon following Israeli strikes

Smoke rises over buildings in southern Lebanon amid the wave of airstrikes

Gallant further revealed on X this morning that he has provided his US counterpart with a ‘situation assessment of Hezbollah threats and briefed him on IDF operations to degrade Hezbollah’s ability to launch attacks against Israeli civilians.’

He added that the wider regional security situation and ‘threats posed by Iran and its proxies’ were also discussed.

The IDF issued a warning to residents of villages in southern Lebanon: ‘If you are in or near a building that Hezbollah uses to store weapons or weapons, you must evacuate this building and move away from it immediately. 

‘Anyone who is near Hezbollah operatives or the organization’s weapons puts themselves in danger.’ 

Lebanon’s PM Najib Mikati denounced Israel’s ‘destructive plan’ at a cabinet meeting this morning.

‘The continuing Israeli aggression on Lebanon is a war of extermination in every sense of the word and a destructive plan that aims to destroy Lebanese villages and towns,’ he said. 

He urged ‘the United Nations and the General Assembly and influential countries… to deter the (Israeli) aggression’.

Smoke billows over southern Lebanon following Israeli strikes, amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Tyre

Smoke billows from the site of Israeli airstrikes that targeted Lebanese villages, as seen from Marjaayoun, southern Lebanon

Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli airstrike in Aramti, near the Lebanon-Israel border, on September 23, 2024

The country’s health ministry has reported that 100 people have so far been killed in the strikes, while 400 have been injured, including women, children and paramedics. 

Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) said that people in the capital were receiving Israeli phone warnings from ‘the Israeli enemy, asking them to quickly evacuate where they are.’ 

Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in an earlier statement that ‘we advise civilians from Lebanese villages located in and next to buildings and areas used by Hezbollah for military purposes, such as those used to store weapons, to immediately move out of harm’s way for their own safety’.

Smoke rises from an Israeli airstrike on Kfar Rouman village, as seen from Marjayoun town, south Lebanon

Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli airstrike in Marjayoun, near the Lebanon-Israel border

Hagari told a media briefing Israel’s military ‘will engage in (more) extensive and precise strikes against terror targets which have been embedded widely throughout Lebanon’.

Asked by reporters about a possible Israeli ground incursion into Lebanon, Hagari said ‘we will do whatever is needed’ in order to return evacuated residents of northern Israel to their homes safely, a war priority for the Israeli government.

He said that Hezbollah over the years has stashed weapons, including cruise missiles, in houses and buildings throughout southern Lebanon, and called on residents to stay away from these sites.

He presented in a media briefing an aerial video of what he described as Hezbollah operatives trying to launch cruise missiles from a civilian house in Lebanon, and the subsequent Israeli strike moments before it was launched.

‘Hezbollah is endangering you. Endangering you and your families,’ Hagari said.

An Israeli jet flies, amid cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, as seen from northern Israel, September 23, 2024

A row of cars is seen outside Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport this morning as people were reportedly told to evacuate

Hezbollah has traded near daily cross-border fire with Israeli forces in support of Hamas since the Palestinian militant group’s October 7 attack triggered the Gaza war.

Violence has spiked dramatically in recent days, and Israel and Hezbollah traded heavy fire over the weekend, raising fears of all-out war.

When asked whether a ground invasion of southern Lebanon could be imminent, a senior Israeli military official said that the IDF is ‘currently focusing on Israel’s aerial campaign only’.

Laying out Israel’s aims in the campaign against Hezbollah, the official told journalists that it wants to degrade the militants’ ability to fire rockets over the border as it has done for 11 months.

They reportedly added that it hopes to push Hezbollah fighters back from the border and destroy the group’s infrastructure which the official said would be used to attack ‘Israeli communities in the north, to massacre, murder, and kidnap Israeli civilians’.

The NNA earlier reported that there had been ‘more than 80 air strikes in half an hour’, targeting south Lebanon’s Nabatiyeh district. It also reported strikes in the Tyre area.

At the same time, the NNA reported ‘intense raids in the Bekaa’ Valley in the east, deep inside Lebanon near the Syrian border, including in the vicinity of Baalbek and the outskirts of Hermel.

The NNA said the strikes in the east killed a ‘civilian’, a shepherd, ‘and wounded two members of his family’ and four others.