Lebanon’s health ministry on Wednesday said 19 people were killed and 15 others were wounded in Israeli strikes on a town in the eastern Bekaa Valley. “The successive raids by the Israeli enemy on the town of Sohmor in west Bekaa… resulted in the martyrdom of 11 people and the injury of 15 others,” the health ministry said in a statement.
It came hours after tens of thousands of residents fled in response to evacuation orders issued by the Israeli military that covered the entire city and two neighbouring towns.
Mayor Mustafa al-Shell told the BBC more than 20 strikes were reported on Wednesday afternoon in the Baalbek area, with five inside the city itself, where there is a Unesco-listed ancient Roman temple complex.
The Israeli military said it had struck Hezbollah command-and-control centres and infrastructure in Baalbek and Nabatiyeh, in southern Lebanon.
The military also said it had targeted Hezbollah fuel depots in the Bekaa Valley, where Baalbek is located. It gave no details, but Lebanon’s state news agency said diesel tanks were hit in the town of Douris, where Mr Shell said pictures showed a huge column of black smoke rising into the air.
The attacks came as Hezbollah’s new secretary-general said the group would continue its war plan against Israel under his leadership and that it would not “cry out” for a ceasefire.
Speaking a day after his appointment was announced, Naim Qassem said he would follow the agenda of his predecessor, Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli air strike in Beirut last month.
Qassem made the speech from an undisclosed location amid reports suggesting he had fled to Iran, which is Hezbollah’s main supporter.
After weeks of an air offensive that has brought devastation to large parts of southern Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs, the Israeli military appears to be expanding its campaign against Hezbollah in the east of the country – another area where the group has a strong presence and support.
Baalbek is a key population centre in the Bekaa Valley, near the border with Syria. It is a largely rural area and one of Lebanon’s poorest regions.
Hezbollah has established part of its infrastructure and recruited fighters from there.
The area is also strategically important for Hezbollah, as it is part of a route linking the group to its allies in Syria and Iraq and, ultimately, to Iran.
On Wednesday morning, the Israeli military issued evacuation orders for the whole of Baalbek and the neighbouring towns of Ain Bourday and Douris, warning that it would “act forcefully against Hezbollah interests”.Roula Zeaiter, programme manager for the Lebanese Women Democratic Gathering (RDFL), said the orders sparked panic among residents, including displaced families from other parts of the country.
“Minutes after the order to leave came, the streets were filled with people grabbing their things, locking their homes and closing their shops,” she told the charity ActionAid.
“We’re scrambling like scared mice, moving from place to place. Lebanon is becoming like Gaza, with Israeli forces using the same tactics.”
