Israel pounds Lebanon with heaviest airstrikes of war as Hezbollah pauses attacks

• Hezbollah halts attacks as Israel presses campaign.
• France's Macron urges Lebanon's inclusion in ceasefire.
• UN 'strongly condemns' Israeli strikes in Lebanon.

Israel carried out its heaviest strikes on Lebanon since the conflict with Hezbollah broke out last month, even as the Iran-aligned group paused attacks on northern Israel and Israeli troops in Lebanon under a two-week US-Iran ceasefire.

Consecutive explosions shook Beirut, sending smoke billowing across the capital, as Israel's military said it had launched the largest coordinated strike of the war. More than 100 Hezbollah command centres and military sites were targeted in Beirut, the Bekaa Valley and southern Lebanon, it said.

The strikes killed 89 people – including a dozen medics – and wounded 700 across the country, Lebanon's health ministry spokesman told Reuters.

In Beirut, Reuters reporters saw people on motorcycles picking up wounded and transporting them to hospitals because there were not enough ambulances to get them in time. A group of firefighters worked to put out flames in a car park after one strike left more than a dozen cars scorched and mangled.

The head of Lebanon's syndicate of doctors, Elias Chlela, called in a written statement for "all physicians from all specialities" to head to any hospital they could to offer help. One of Beirut's biggest hospitals said it was in need of donations of all blood types.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said overnight that the ceasefire suspending the six-week-old US-Israeli war against Iran did not apply to Lebanon, and the Israeli military said operations against Hezbollah there would continue.

That position contradicted comments by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, a key intermediary in the US-Iran ceasefire talks, who had said the truce would include Lebanon.

Lebanon's state news agency NNA had reported continued Israeli strikes across southern Lebanon earlier in the day, including artillery shelling and a dawn airstrike on a building near a hospital that killed four people. An Israeli strike on the southern city of Sidon killed eight people and wounded 22 others, Lebanon's health ministry said.

A further strike hit central Beirut in the early evening, NNA reported.

'A grave violation'

Hezbollah stopped attacking Israeli targets early on Wednesday, three Lebanese sources close to the group told Reuters. The group's last public statement on its military activity was posted at 1am (2200 GMT Tuesday), saying it had targeted Israeli troops inside Lebanon on Tuesday evening.

"Hezbollah was informed that it is part of the ceasefire – so we abided by it, but Israel as usual has violated it and committed massacres all across Lebanon," senior Hezbollah lawmaker Ibrahim al-Moussawi told Reuters.

Another Hezbollah lawmaker, Hassan Fadlallah, told Reuters the Israeli strikes were "a grave violation of the ceasefire" and that there would be "repercussions for the entire agreement" if they continued.

The group is likely to issue a statement outlining its formal position on the ceasefire and on Netanyahu's assertion that Lebanon is not included, the three Lebanese sources said.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, welcoming the US-Iran ceasefire, said Beirut would continue its efforts to ensure that Lebanon was included in any lasting regional peace agreement.

Most of Wednesday's strikes were in civilian-populated areas, Israel's military said. Hours before the strike, the military had issued warnings for some areas of southern Beirut and southern Lebanon. No such warning was given for central Beirut, which was also hit.

Following the strikes, Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee claimed on X that Hezbollah had moved out of its stronghold in southern Beirut’s Dahiyeh neighbourhood to mixed areas of the city, including in the north.

Addressing Hezbollah, he said, Israel's military will "pursue you and act with great force against you wherever you are".

'Lebanon can't take it anymore'

More than 1,500 people have been killed in Israel's air and ground campaign across Lebanon, including more than 130 children and more than 100 women, since March 2 when Hezbollah started firing rockets at Israel in solidarity with Tehran.

Israel ​has issued evacuation orders covering around 15% of Lebanese ​territory since then, mostly in the south and in suburbs south of Beirut. More than 1.2 million people have been displaced, according to Lebanese authorities.

Israel has also pledged to occupy southern Lebanon up to the Litani River as part ​of a "security zone" it says is intended to protect its northern residents.

"Hopefully, a ceasefire will be reached," said Ahmed Harm, a 54-year-old man displaced from Beirut's southern suburbs. "Lebanon can’t take it anymore. The country is collapsing economically, and everything is collapsing."

Outside a school sheltering displaced people in Sidon, pillows and blankets were piled onto cars as some families held out hope of returning home soon. On an astroturf football field, one family had packed plastic bags with clothes, pots and pans, towels, sheets and blankets.

"We’re just waiting for the official decision from the top, so we can go back," said Samar al-Saibany, who was displaced from a village in the south.

Local mayor Mustafa al-Zein said more than 28,000 people were sheltering in the area as of Tuesday night. He cautioned residents against trying to return before an official signal.

"In the south, give someone a signal to return, and he’ll return," Zein said.