Star Metro - Panic as Israel army urges residents to evacuate south Lebanon's Tyre area

Three Lebanese soldiers were killed in Israeli strikes earlier Tuesday, the Lebanese army said, as Israel carried out raids and again ordered residents of vast parts of southern Lebanon to evacuate.

Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East war on March 2 when pro-Iran Hezbollah launched rockets towards Israel in response to US-Israeli strikes that killed Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Israel has responded with intense strikes in multiple Lebanese regions and ground operations in the south, with its finance minister saying this month that Beirut's suburbs would soon "resemble" the badly damaged Gazan city of Khan Yunis.

From Geneva, the UN rights office said Tuesday that threats by Israeli officials "to impose the same level of destruction on Lebanon as inflicted in Gaza are wholly unacceptable".

On social media, the Israeli military issued an "urgent alert" to residents of most of Tyre city as well as swathes of surrounding areas, saying it planned to "act forcefully" against Hezbollah.

Bilal Kashmar, media coordinator for the disaster management unit at the union of Tyre district municipalities, told AFP there was chaos in the city and nearby after the late-night evacuation order, as panicked people scrambled to leave, with heavy traffic and shooting into the air in warning.

Many families had remained in the area including in several Palestinian refugee camps despite previous Israeli army evacuation orders for swathes of south Lebanon, he said.

Around 11,000 people displaced from other parts of the country's south have also taken refuge in Tyre and surrounding areas that are under threat, he added.

- 'Don't have space' -

Earlier Tuesday, Lebanon's state-run National News Agency reported Israel strikes on Beirut's southern suburbs and in various locations in the country's south, as well as on the eastern city of Baalbek where it reported two dead.

Lebanon's health minister condemned "the severe material damage" to three public hospitals and a Lebanese civil defence center in the country's south following Israeli attacks that also wounded 11 health workers, a statement said.

Israel said late Tuesday it had struck sites "throughout Lebanon," targeting what it called Hezbollah rocket launching infrastructure after a series of air raid sirens in northern Israel.

The Iran-backed Hezbollah announced a wave of simultaneous attacks on northern Israel on Tuesday evening, saying its fighters targeted around a dozen towns and several Israeli bases with barrages of rockets as well as advanced missiles.

In the southern city of Sidon, far from the border, an AFP team saw displaced people sleeping in their cars along the seafront promenade.

The city "is full, we have no more capacity", said Jihan Kaisi, the director of an NGO that runs a school-turned-shelter, where more than 1,100 people are crammed together.

"Lots of people are coming every day to ask for shelter but we don't have space anymore, we can't accept them," she said.

- Soldiers killed -

According to Lebanese authorities, Israeli strikes have killed 912 people, including 111 children, since March 2, while more than one million people have registered as displaced -- more than a sixth of the country's population -- with more than 130,000 staying in official shelters.

Israel's military on Tuesday renewed its call for residents to evacuate a region stretching more than 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the Lebanon-Israel border, a day after announcing "limited" ground operations were underway in the south.

The Lebanese military said three of its soldiers were killed in two Israeli air strikes in the south, while the Israeli army said its operations were not directed "against the Lebanese army".

Lebanon's army has tried to stay out of the war, but three of its soldiers were killed by Israeli shelling earlier this month during a failed Israeli commando operation in eastern Lebanon.

Israel also struck near Beirut's airport in the city's southern suburbs on Tuesday, killing one person, the health ministry said, while civil aviation authorities said the airport continued to operate normally and that the road leading to it remained passable.

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A.Hill--SMC