Israeli threatens more attacks on Lebanon's historical city of Baalbek

More than 1.4 million people have been displaced in the war between Israel and Hezbollah

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Israel's army threatened to carry out more attacks on the Lebanese city of Baalbek on Wednesday, ordering all of its residents and people in surrounding areas to leave.

The Israeli military said it was readying to hit Hezbollah sites, although recent visits to the region by The National suggest that the vast majority of casualties were civilians.

“Don't worry, God is with us,” Ali Allam, the director of Baalbek's Dar Al Amal Hospital, told The National after the Israeli displacement orders.

Elsewhere, at least 14 people were killed and about 60 injured in Israeli attacks on south Lebanon overnight, in areas that had largely been spared from Israel's bombings until it escalated its war on Lebanon six weeks ago.

Eight people were killed and 21 injured in the attack on Sarafand, just below south Lebanon's largest city of Sidon. Attacks in Sidon killed six and injured 37, Lebanon's Health Ministry said.

More than 2,700 people have been killed, and another 12,592 have been wounded in the year-long conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, with the largest number of casualties in the past six weeks, according to the Health Ministry. About 1.4 million have also been displaced.

Israel's attacks have caused widespread destruction across Lebanon, particularly in the south, the capital Beirut and in the Bekaa Valley neighbouring Syria, where Baalbek is located. It also began a land invasion of southern Lebanon but progress has been slow amid resistance from Hezbollah fighters.

The state-run National News Agency said on Tuesday that Israeli tanks entered the outskirts of the village of Khiam, the deepest their ground invasion into south Lebanon has reached since it started last month. It reported that a large number of tanks belonging to the Israeli army entered the eastern outskirts of Khiam about 6km from the border with Israel.

Hezbollah said it destroyed two tanks using guided missiles and targeted Israeli troops south and south-west of Khiam with rockets and artillery.

NNA said Israeli forces carried out a series of air attacks on Khiam later on Tuesday and launched a large-scale sweep “using heavy and medium weaponry”.

The attacks on Tuesday come a day after Israel Israeli air strikes killed at least 67 people and wounded at least 120 more across the Baalbek-Hermel region in the Bekaa Valley on Monday in the “most violent day” for the area since the war began.