Israel blocks Lebanon's main road to Syria with airstrike, targets Hezbollah in Beirut

Israeli strikes sealed off Lebanon's main border crossing with Syria early on Friday, hours after an intense Israeli attack on Beirut's southern suburbs that is thought to have targeted the heir apparent to Hezbollah's slain secretary general.

The strikes added to fears inside Lebanon that Israel's targeting of Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah militants will bring an all-out conflict, with Israel also poised to respond to Tuesday's Iranian missile barrage on its territory. U.S. President Joe Biden said on Thursday Israel's response could include a strike on Iran's oil facilities.

Lebanese Transport Minister Ali Hamieh told Reuters Friday's strike on the Syrian border hit inside Lebanese territory near the crossing, creating a four-metre wide crater.

The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) had accused Hezbollah on Thursday of using the crossing with Syria to transport military equipment into Lebanon.

"The IDF will not allow the smuggling of these weapons and will not hesitate to act if forced to do so, as it has done throughout this war," IDF spokesperson Avichay Adraee said on X.

According to Lebanese government statistics, more than 300,000 people — a vast majority of them Syrian — had crossed from Lebanon into Syria over the last 10 days to escape escalating Israeli bombardment.

The southern suburb of Dahiye, a stronghold of the Iran-backed Hezbollah, came under renewed strikes near midnight on Thursday after Israel ordered people to leave their homes in some areas, residents and security sources said.

The air raids targeted Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine, rumoured successor to its assassinated leader Hassan Nasrallah, in an underground bunker, Axios reporter Barak Ravid said on X, citing three Israeli officials.

Safieddine's fate was not clear, he said.

Israel's military declined comment and Hezbollah made no comment on Safieddine's fate.

Huge explosions shook the sky in the vicinity of Beirut's main airport in the early hours of Friday, and Lebanese civilians said they were living in constant fear.

"It's like you're alive but not alive. We're alive but don't know for how long, we're alive but don't know when the rockets will hit you and your family," said Nouhad Chaib, a 40-year-old man already displaced from the south.

The Israeli military on Friday told the residents of over 20 southern towns in Lebanon to leave immediately, spokesperson Avichay Adraee said on X as Israel pressed ahead with its incursions in the region. Nearly 90 villages in the south have been told to evacuate so far, as well as parts of Beirut's southern suburbs.

Three Hezbollah-linked rescue workers were wounded by a strike in a southern suburb, a Lebanese security source told Reuters.