Lebanese official media: Israel sending phone warnings to evacuate

AFP , Monday 23 Sep 2024

Lebanese official media said Monday people were receiving Israeli phone warnings telling them to evacuate, and Information Minister Ziad Makary's office told AFP it had received one of the calls.

A Lebanese man checks a message received on his mobile phone in Beirut on September 23, 2024, calling people to evacuate the areas where Hezbollah hides its weapons. AFP

The reports came after the Israeli army told people in Lebanon to move away from Hezbollah sites and vowed to carry out more strikes against the Lebanese group.

It was the Israeli army's first official warning issued to Lebanese people since the war on Gaza erupted nearly a year ago.

Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA) said that "citizens in Beirut and a number of areas are receiving landline telephone warning messages whose source is the Israeli enemy, asking them to quickly evacuate where they are".

It called the phone warnings "part of the psychological war that the enemy has adopted".

Minister Makary's office, located in Beirut near several other ministries, said it received a landline call and when staff responded, a "recorded message" told them to evacuate the building.

Imad Kreidieh, head of state telecommunications provider Ogero, said "the landline network system in Lebanon blocks all communications from Israel".

But Israel "circumvents the communications systems by using the international phone code of a friendly country", he told AFP.

Israel and Lebanon are technically at war, and Lebanon forbids communications with Israel.