Israel Orders Residents in Neighborhood Near Beirut to Evacuate

The Israeli military ordered residents near the Lebanese capital of Beirut to evacuate on Friday for the first time since a U.S.-brokered cease-fire went into effect months ago after rockets were fired on northern Israel.

Avichay Adraee, a spokesman for the Israeli military, posted a map on social media with a single building in the densely populated Hadath neighborhood of Dahiya, on the edges of Beirut, marked in red. Anyone within roughly 300 yards of the structure “must evacuate immediately,” he wrote, saying they were near “facilities” affiliated with Hezbollah, the Lebanese political and militant group.

After the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023 attack ignited the war in Gaza, Hezbollah began firing rockets and drones at Israeli positions in solidarity with its Palestinian ally. The fighting escalated into full-scale war and an Israeli ground invasion before the two sides agreed to a cease-fire in November.

Israeli forces have regularly conducted attacks on purported militant sites in southern and eastern Lebanon despite the truce with Hezbollah. But Dahiya, which is traditionally a bastion of support for the armed group, had not been targeted since the cease-fire was agreed.

Air-raid sirens warning of incoming rocket fire rung out in northern Israel, including the city of Kiryat Shmona, on Friday morning. The Israeli military later said one of the projectiles was intercepted and another fell inside Lebanese territory. Hezbollah denied any involvement and said in a statement that it remained committed to the cease-fire.

Israel Katz, the Israeli defense minister, threatened to attack Beirut in response. “If it’s not quiet in Kiryat Shmona and the communities in the Galilee — it shall not be quiet in Beirut,” Mr. Katz said in a statement.

In Dahiya, gunfire erupted as residents attempted to alert neighbors to the Israeli threat, in a scene reminiscent of the most intense days of the war when Israeli airstrikes pounded the neighborhood on a near daily basis.

“People are panicking,” said Elie Hachem, the director of the St. Therese hospital, which is about 600 meters from the threatened building in Mr. Adraee’s social media post. “I can hear cars honking like crazy outside on the street.”

Mr. Hachem said that the staff at the hospital itself, which was badly damaged in the war, had no immediate plans to evacuate.

For now, he said, they were just “trying to keep everyone calm.”

Hwaida Saad and Dayana Iwaza contributed reporting from Beirut.