Israel has conducted an airstrike on Beirut for the first time since signing a November ceasefire with Hezbollah.
Huge smoke plumes rose from the site of the attack in the southern suburb of Dahiyeh and residents reported hearing the explosion from the mountains surrounding the Lebanese capital.
The strike threatens to upset the fragile truce in place between Hezbollah and Israel since a ceasefire was signed on 27 November last year.
Before the bombing, Israel’s military issued an evacuation order and warned it would attack a building in Dahiyeh. A spokesperson posted a map on X with a building marked in red, telling residents to flee more than 300 metres away, reminiscent of the daily maps the Israeli military issued before bombings during its war with Hezbollah.
“You are present near facilities belonging to Hezbollah,” the spokesperson warned, pointing to a building near two schools in Dahiyeh. The warning was followed by two drone strikes.
An Israeli military spokesperson later said the airstrikes targeted a truck and Hezbollah drone storage facility known as Unit 127.
The warning caused people in Dahiyeh to flee, with men shooting in the air to warn those who had not seen the announcement on social media. Videos showed residents sheltering on pavements in central Beirut.
Earlier in the morning, Israel announced it had intercepted one of two rockets coming from Lebanon, the second time in a week that rocket fire was directed towards it, after three rockets were fired at the town of Metula on 22 March.
According to the military, one of the rockets was intercepted, while the other fell short inside Lebanese territory as rocket sirens sounded in the city of Kiryat Shmona and the communes of Tel Hai, Margaliot and Misgav Am.
No one claimed responsibility for Friday’s rocket fire, and Hezbollah issued no statement.
Israel conducted several airstrikes in southern Lebanon before the evacuation warning in Beirut on Friday. Lebanon announced the closure of schools in the south in fear of further strikes.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Friday’s strike marked an “example” of Israel’s “determination” to act against its northern neighbour.
“We will not allow firing on our communities, not even a trickle,” Netanyahu said in a statement. “We will continue to vigorously enforce the ceasefire; we will attack everywhere in Lebanon, against any threat to the State of Israel, and we will ensure that all our residents in the north return to their homes safely.”
The Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, said: “If calm does not prevail in the Galilee towns, there will be no calm in Beirut … We will not allow a return to the situation before October 7.
“I am sending a clear message from here to the Lebanese government: if you do not enforce the ceasefire agreement we will enforce it,” Katz added.
It is unclear how Hezbollah will respond to a strike on Dahiyeh, where the group enjoys large public support. Hezbollah claims its role is to protect Lebanon from the Israeli military, so a strike near the country’s capital could challenge the basis of its legitimacy.
There has been no resumption of major hostilities since the ceasefire began in November, despite Israel conducting hundreds of strikes in Lebanon. Hezbollah claimed responsibility for one strike in Israel a few days after the signing of the ceasefire.
The ceasefire had brought an end to more than 13 months of fighting between Hezbollah and Israel, which killed more than 3,900 people and displaced about 1 million in Lebanon. Lebanon’s prime minister, Nawaf Salam, has emphasised his commitment to the ceasefire deal and reiterated that the decision for Lebanon to go to war lay with the state, not with Hezbollah.
Salam issued a statement calling on the military to “uncover those behind the irresponsible rocket fire that threatens Lebanon’s stability and security”.
The new Lebanese government, elected after the signing of the ceasefire, has made disarming the non-state militia a priority.
In Gaza, where Israel resumed its military operation on 18 March, shattering the relative calm of a January ceasefire with Hamas, the aid group World Central Kitchen said an Israeli airstrike killed one of its volunteers near a facility distributing meals to besieged Palestinians. The strike wounded six other people, the US-based charity said.
World Central Kitchen said it would continue to operate its field kitchens “where possible, based on daily assessments”. It did not give the location of the strike and the Israeli military did not immediately comment.
The UN Human Rights Office accused Israel on Friday of violating international law by forcibly displacing Palestinians in Gaza under “mandatory evacuation orders”.
The Israeli army has issued what the UN described as 10 mandatory evacuation orders, which ‘‘fail to comply with the requirements of international humanitarian law”, the body’s spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan said in a statement on Friday.
Israel’s permanent mission to Geneva said it was operating in accordance with international humanitarian law. “Israel is evacuating civilians to protect them from Hamas terrorists, who relentlessly use them as human shields in a blatant violation of international law,” the mission said.
