Israel's military said on Monday that it had carried out a strike in the Lebanese capital Beirut, killing Hussein Makled, who served as the head of Hezbollah's intelligence headquarters. 

Israel has conducted various strikes on parts of Lebanon since Sunday, when the Iran-backed Hezbollah group fired into Israel in response to the death of Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Prior to those strikes, there was a delicate and imperfect truce in place between Israel and Hezbollah. 

On Monday, an Israel Defense Forces spokesman called on residents in more than a dozen locations near the de facto border in the south and east to leave the areas. 

"We have issued 18 urgent evacuation warnings for buildings used by the Hezbollah terrorist organization in the following villages and towns," the IDF's Arabic language spokesman Avichay Adraee posted on X, along with a list of locations. 

Lebanon's Health Ministry reports 52 dead, civilians flee at-risk areas

The Lebanese Health Ministry on Monday reported 52 people killed and 154 wounded amid Israeli strikes on sites in the south of the capital Beirut and nearer the border areas further south. This updated an earlier statement saying that 31 people had died.

Hezbollah, which was founded by Iran's Revolutionary Guards in 1982, said it had fired into Israel to avenge "the pure blood" of Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei, who was killed in bombing on Saturday.

It was the first barrage of Hezbollah missiles fired into Israel of its kind in over a year, and was followed by the most extensive Israeli strikes during the same period.

Israel said it held Hezbollah responsible for the escalation and that it deemed the group's leader, Naim Qassem, to be a "target for elimination." However it has so far not indicated that any kind of ground incursion is necessary or likely. 

Civilians jammed up major Lebanese roads in a bid to flee areas likely to be at risk, first overnight Sunday into Monday, and continuing past the dawn. 

Lebanon's government bans Hezbollah from military activities

Lebanon's government in Beirut appeared to be trying to defuse the fighting on Monday as more explosions were heard in parts of the capital. 

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam held a Cabinet meeting on Monday, and afterwards said that the state rejected any military actions launched from Lebanese territory "outside the framework of its legitimate instructions and affirmed that the decision of war and peace is exclusively in its hands."

Salam said that this "necessitates the immediate prohibition of all Hezbollah's security and military activities as being outside the law, and obliging it to hand over its weapons to the Lebanese state."

Part of the uneasy truce brokered last year involved Lebanon's government taking control of security in the south near the Israeli frontier and pulling Hezbollah forces away from the area. 

But whether or to what extent the Lebanese government can actually control Hezbollah, particularly now that the fighting in Iran is ratcheting up the tension, is a very open question.

 

Edited by: Karl Sexton