Beirut, Lebanon—Lebanese official media said Monday people were receiving Israeli phone warnings telling them to evacuate, and Information Minister Ziad Makary’s office told Agence France Presse (AFP) it had received one of the messages.
The reports came after the Israeli military told people in Lebanon to move away from Hezbollah targets and vowed to carry out more “extensive and precise” strikes against the Iran-backed group.
It was the Israeli military’s first official warning issued to Lebanese people since the war in 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 in order to avoid strikes.
Others in Lebanon reported receiving mobile phone text messages with similar warnings from a sender whose number was not displayed.
Beirut resident Khaled, who asked to be identified only by his first name, said he “received a text message that said: “If you are in a building where there are Hezbollah weapons, distance yourself from the village until further notice.”
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.
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