“Enemy aircraft” launched a series of “strikes targeting the southern suburbs” in Beirut, the official National News Agency (NNA) said.

Israeli army Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee had issued an “urgent warning” for residents of the south Beirut area of Burj al-Barajneh to evacuate along with maps of the area.

“You are located near facilities and interests belonging to Hezbollah, and the IDF (Israeli army) will work against them in the near future,” he had said in a statement on X.

AFP correspondents heard several loud explosions and saw smoke rising from the southern suburbs.

Earlier in the evening, a source close to Hezbollah said another Israeli strike had targeted a warehouse next to Beirut airport, in the capital’s south.

“An Israeli air strike targeted a warehouse adjacent to the airport,” the source told AFP, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. It was unclear what the warehouse contained.

Earlier in the afternoon, the NNA had reported several “enemy raids”.

A source close to the group had told AFP that the earlier strikes had “targeted a building housing Hezbollah’s media relations office”, which had already been evacuated.

This week, Israel announced that its troops had started “ground raids” into parts of southern Lebanon, after days of heavy bombardment of Hezbollah strongholds around the country.

After nearly a year of low-intensity cross-border fighting, Israel has shifted the focus of its operation from Gaza to Lebanon, where heavy bombing has killed more than 1,000 people and forced hundreds of thousands to flee.

Last week, Israel killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in south Beirut, a densely populated area before residents fled Israel’s intensifying bombardment.