BEIRUT, June 9 (Reuters) – Israel struck the historic port city of Tyre in southern Lebanon on Tuesday killing at least eight people, the Lebanese health ministry said, after an Israeli evacuation order for the entire city was issued for the first time.
The deaths followed a single strike on the city’s eastern edge, the ministry and state media said, in one of the deadliest Israeli bombing raids on Tyre since the war between Israel and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah erupted on March 2.
A video of the aftermath, in a location verified by Reuters as being in the neighbourhood of the strike, showed debris strewn across the length of a road. In a smoke-filled alleyway, a crane could be seen operating near a damaged building.
The health ministry said rescuers were still searching through the rubble of the strike for survivors.
MSF SUSPENDS OPERATIONS AT HOSPITALS
The Israeli military had on Tuesday morning issued an online evacuation warning for the entire city, including its northwestern Christian quarter, where people displaced from elsewhere in the city were seeking shelter and which had been left out of previous evacuation orders.
Last week, the Israeli military said militants from Iran-backed Hezbollah were hiding out in the area, without providing evidence. It urged Christians in the city to demand Hezbollah depart, and threatened to order the district’s evacuation if the fighters did not leave.
Lebanese state media said people were fleeing the city on Tuesday, with civil defense teams transporting elderly residents who stayed behind into temporary shelters.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said in a statement it was deeply concerned by what it called “forced displacement practices,” referring to Israel’s warning for people to leave before the strikes.
It said they “expose people to further harm by compelling them to move in unsafe and chaotic conditions.”
MSF said it had to suspend its medical activities at several hospitals nearby, as well as its mobile clinic operations, for the day.
The latest war in Lebanon erupted when Hezbollah launched rockets at Israel in support of its ally Tehran. Israel has retaliated with heavy strikes and a ground invasion that has occupied swathes of the south.
The U.S. announced a ceasefire on April 16, but it has failed to halt fighting in southern Lebanon.
Israel has continued to issue evacuation orders for southern Lebanon that have effectively emptied a fifth of the country, including areas far beyond the front lines.
(Reporting by Maya Gebeily, Edward Carron in London, Ahmed Elimam in Dubai; Editing by Kirsten Donovan, Aidan Lewis)
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