BEIRUT — Israeli strikes have killed 19 people, including eight women, around Lebanon's eastern city of Baalbek, the country's health ministry has said.

It came hours after tens of thousands of residents fled in response to evacuation orders issued by the Israeli military that covered the entire city and two neighboring towns.

Mayor Mustafa al-Shell told the BBC more than 20 strikes were reported on Wednesday afternoon in the Baalbek area, with five inside the city itself, where there is a Unesco-listed ancient Roman temple complex.

The Israeli military said it had struck Hezbollah command-and-control centers and infrastructure in Baalbek and Nabatiyeh, in southern Lebanon.

The military also said it had targeted Hezbollah fuel depots in the Bekaa Valley, where Baalbek is located. It gave no details, but Lebanon's state news agency said diesel tanks were hit in the town of Douris, where Shell said pictures showed a huge column of black smoke rising into the air.

The attacks came as Hezbollah’s new secretary-general said the group would continue its war plan against Israel under his leadership and that it would not “cry out” for a ceasefire.

Speaking a day after his appointment was announced, Naim Qassem said he would follow the agenda of his predecessor, Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli air strike in Beirut last month.

Qassem made the speech from an undisclosed location amid reports suggesting he had fled to Iran, which is Hezbollah’s main supporter.

After weeks of an air offensive that has brought devastation to large parts of southern Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs, the Israeli military appears to be expanding its campaign against Hezbollah in the east of the country — another area where the group has a strong presence and support.

Baalbek is a key population centre in the Bekaa Valley, near the border with Syria. It is a largely rural area and one of Lebanon’s poorest regions.

Hezbollah has established part of its infrastructure and recruited fighters from there.

The area is also strategically important for Hezbollah, as it is part of a route linking the group to its allies in Syria and Iraq and, ultimately, to Iran.

On Wednesday morning, the Israeli military issued evacuation orders for the whole of Baalbek and the neighbouring towns of Ain Bourday and Douris, warning that it would “act forcefully against Hezbollah interests”.

Roula Zeaiter, program manager for the Lebanese Women Democratic Gathering (RDFL), said the orders sparked panic among residents, including displaced families from other parts of the country.

"Minutes after the order to leave came, the streets were filled with people grabbing their things, locking their homes and closing their shops,” she told the charity ActionAid.

“We’re scrambling like scared mice, moving from place to place. Lebanon is becoming like Gaza, with Israeli forces using the same tactics.”

Videos posted online showed huge traffic jams on the main roads out of the city.

Mustafa al-Shell estimated that about 50,000 people fled within two hours, but he added that many others decided to stay behind “for various reasons”.

He said the initial wave of Israeli strikes on Wednesday afternoon hit villas and other residential buildings in Baalbek’s city centre and its outskirts.

“It’s not clear what the Israelis have targeted,” he added. “But I can tell you that there are no ammunition dumps or weapons caches in Baalbek.”

The state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported that the Ras al-Ain Hills, Amshki, al-Asira, al-Kayyal Road areas were hit, and the northern and southern entrances to Baalbek. The strikes also targeted Ain Bourday and Douris, including diesel tanks in its vicinity, it said.

Later, the Lebanese health ministry said 11 people, including three women, were killed in a strike on Salibi Farm in the Baalbek area. Eight others, including five women, were killed in another strike in Bednayel, it added.

The ministry separately said another 11 people were killed in Israeli strikes in the town of Sohmor, in the southern Bekaa Valley.

Following the strikes on Baalbek, the Israeli military said it had conducted "intelligence-based strikes on fuel depots located inside military compounds belonging to Hezbollah's Logistical Reinforcement Unit 4400 in the Bekaa Valley". The unit was responsible for transferring weapons from Iran, it added.

A second statement said aircraft had "struck command-and-control centers and terrorist infrastructure" in the Baalbek area.

It also accused Hezbollah of systematically using civilian infrastructure and areas for military activities, which the group has previously denied.

Shell said none of the strikes hit Baalbek’s Unesco World Heritage site, which comprises the ruins of Roman temples that date back to the 1st Century AD and are among the largest and best-preserved in the world.

However, he warned of what he called “Israeli treachery” and said Lebanese authorities were “pleading... for international bodies to stand fast in defense of Baalbek's Roman ruins”.

Unesco warned in a post on X on Wednesday that featured a photo of the Temple of Jupiter at Baalbek, that World Heritage sites across the Middle East, particularly those in Lebanon, were under threat.

“Unesco recalls to all parties their obligation to respect and protect the integrity of these sites. They are the heritage of all humanity and should never be targeted,” it said.

On Monday night, several buildings were levelled around the Gouraud Barracks area of Baalbek, near the Roman ruins, during Israeli strikes that killed more than 60 people across the Bekaa Valley.

When asked by reporters in Washington about the Baalbek strikes, US state department spokesman Matthew Miller called on Israel not to threaten the lives of civilians or damage critical civilian infrastructure and cultural heritage.

He also confirmed that US Middle East envoys Amos Hochstein and Brett McGurk were “traveling to Israel to engage on issues including a diplomatic resolution in Lebanon, as well as how we get to an end to the conflict in Gaza”.

Lebanon’s Prime Minister, Najob Mikati, expressed optimism that a ceasefire might be possible in "the coming hours or days".

Two sources told Reuters news agency that US mediators were working on a proposal for a 60-day ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah which would be used to finalise the full implementation of UN Security Council resolution 1701.

The resolution ended the last war they fought in 2006 and included a call for southern Lebanon to be free of any armed personnel or weapons other than those of the Lebanese state and a UN peacekeeping force.

Israel went on the offensive against Hezbollah — which it proscribes as a terrorist organisation — after almost a year of cross-border fighting sparked by the war in Gaza.

It says it wants to ensure the safe return of tens of thousands of residents of northern Israeli border areas displaced by rocket attacks, which Hezbollah launched in support of Palestinians the day after its ally Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel on 7 October 2023.

The Israeli military said about 60 projectiles fired by Hezbollah crossed from Lebanon into Israel on Wednesday. No injuries were reported.

More than 2,800 people have been killed in Lebanon since then, including 2,100 in the past five weeks, and 1.2 million others displaced, according to Lebanese authorities.

Israeli authorities say more than 60 people have been killed in northern Israel and the occupied Golan Heights. — BBC