The Israeli military told residents in parts of Beirut’s southern suburbs to evacuate late on Friday, after strikes that it said had targeted Hezbollah‘s central headquarters and with no word hours later from the group on the fate of their head Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

The order to evacuate, made by Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee via X, told residents to get at least 500 meters (550 yards) away from three specific buildings in the area. It was the first announcement of its kind for the densely populated neighbourhoods south of Beirut.

A source close to Hezbollah told Reuters Nasrallah was alive. Iran’s Tasnim news agency also reported he was safe. A senior Iranian security official told Reuters Tehran was checking his status. Hezbollah‘s media office said that there was no truth to any statements surrounding the Israeli strikes, but did not say anything about the fate of the group’s leader.

In New York, a senior Israeli official told reporters that senior Hezbollah commanders were the target of Israel’s strike on the central headquarters on Friday but it was too early to say whether the attack took out Nasrallah.

Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon told reporters at the United Nations that the attack targeted a “meeting of bad people” planning more attacks on Israel.

“When I said this was a meeting of bad actors, Nasrallah is a bad actor. He’s a terrorist. He has the blood on his hands for many Americans, thousands of Israelis, so I think he should be punished for that. I cannot confirm now whether he was at that meeting or not, but when I speak about bad actors, he’s one of them,” Danon said.

Lebanon’s health ministry said there were two dead and 76 wounded from the Israeli strikes, describing it as a preliminary toll.

Iran-backed Hezbollah‘s al-Manar television reported four buildings were destroyed and there were many casualties in the multiple strikes, which marked a major escalation of Israel’s conflict with the heavily armed Hezbollah.

Al-Manar’s live feed showed search and rescue teams scrambling over concrete and protruding metal, with a correspondent for the TV station saying the attack had left several large craters and damaged many surrounding buildings.

The Israeli military said it had carried out a “precise strike” on Hezbollah‘s headquarters, which it said were “embedded under residential buildings in the heart of the Dahiyeh in Beirut”.

Israel has struck the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut, known as Dahiyeh, four times over the last week, killing at least three senior Hezbollah military commanders.

Friday’s attack was far more powerful, with multiple blasts shaking windows across the city, recalling Israeli airstrikes during a war with Hezbollah in 2006.

In a televised statement, Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said the central command centre was embedded deep within civilian areas.

The strikes hit Beirut shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to continue Israel’s attacks on Iranian-backed fighters in Lebanon in a U.N. speech, as hopes faded for a ceasefire to head off all-out regional war.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said the attack showed Israel did not care about global calls for a Lebanon ceasefire.

Iran’s embassy in Lebanon said on X that the strike represented a dangerous game-changing escalation that would “bring its perpetrator an appropriate punishment.”

SHARP ESCALATION IN CONFLICT RAISES CONCERN AT UN

The escalation raised concern at the United Nations, where the annual General Assembly has been meeting this week. Among those voicing concern was France, which earlier in the week proposed a 21-day ceasefire to reduce tensions.

“The large-scale strikes which took place today in the south suburb of Beirut, brought devastation and claimed many casualties. This must be brought to an end immediately,” French Ambassador Nicolas de Riviere told a Security Council meeting.

At a New York press conference, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said: “We believe the way forward is through diplomacy, not conflict. The path to diplomacy may seem difficult to see at this moment, but it is there, and in our judgment, it is necessary, and we will continue to work intentionally with all parties to urge them to choose that course.”

It was by far the most powerful Israeli attack on Beirut during nearly a year of conflict with Hezbollah. Security sources in Lebanon said the attack targeted an area where top Hezbollah officials are usually based.

This week, Israeli airstrikes have killed more than 700 people in Lebanon, an escalation that has raised fears of an even more destructive conflict.

In its first statement since the Israeli strike, Hezbollah said it had fired rockets at the city of Safed in Israel.

Israeli emergency services said they were treating a woman with minor injuries from the rocket in Safed.

Speaking at the U.N. General Assembly, Netanyahu said: “As long as Hezbollah chooses the path of war, Israel has no choice, and Israel has every right to remove this threat and return our citizens to their homes safely.”

Several delegations walked out as Netanyahu approached the lectern while supporters in the gallery cheered.

Netanyahu’s office said he would cut short his trip to New York and return to Israel on Friday.

The United States did not have advance warning of the Beirut strike and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with his Israeli counterpart as the operation was ongoing, a Pentagon spokesperson said.

Israel says its campaign aims to secure the safe return of thousands of people forced to evacuate in northern Israel because of Hezbollah rocket attacks in solidarity with its Palestinian ally Hamas, which is fighting Israel in Gaza.

This week’s escalation has displaced around 100,000 people in Lebanon, increasing the total number of people uprooted in the country by the conflict to well over 200,000. Israel says Hezbollah rocket attacks during the past year have forced the evacuation of 70,000 Israelis from northern Israel.

UNCONFIRMED REPORTS

Senior Hezbollah commanders were the target of Israel’s strike on the group’s central headquarters in Beirut’s suburbs on Friday but it was too early to say whether the attack took out its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, a senior Israeli official said on Friday.

“I think it’s too early to say, but, you know, it’s a question of time. Sometimes they hide the fact when we succeed,” the official told reporters when asked if the Israeli strike on Friday had killed Nasrallah.

The Israeli military said it had targeted Iran-backed Hezbollah‘s central headquarters in Beirut in an attack that shook the Lebanese capital.

Asked how long it might take to determine the fate of Nasrallah, the senior Israeli official said: “Certainly if he’s alive, you’ll know it very immediately. If he’s dead, it may take some time.”

The official, who was briefing reporters in New York on condition of anonymity, said: “We cannot survive if we don’t stop this and reverse it,” he said, referring to the threat to Israel from Iran-backed militia in the region.

“It’s impossible to reverse it without a general war. That was the assumption, a general war with Hezbollah, which, of course, entails the possibility of a broader war with Iran.”

“The other way to do it was to take him out. That’s the only thing. If you take him out, you not only neutralize, possibly neutralize that front, because nothing else will, but you also break a lynchpin. You break a central axis of the axis.”

Nasrallah became secretary general of Hezbollah in 1992 at just 35, the public face of a once shadowy group founded by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in 1982 to fight Israeli occupation forces.

Israel killed his predecessor, Sayyed Abbas al-Musawi, in a helicopter attack.

The official defended Israel’s action when asked why killing Nasrallah would change the threat from Hezbollah when earlier assassinations of militant leaders had not hobbled their organizations.

“I think it’s different,” the official said. “In many ways he keeps this thing focused, alive and kicking.”

“Some people are irreplaceable. It happens, some people do not have a substitute. That’s one of the cases, there’s no question,” the official said.

“About 10 days ago or two weeks ago, the cabinet made a decision that we cannot have – after a year – Israelis who are basically refugees in their own land,” the official said.

“So we added a formal war aim to bring our people back, to degrade Hezbollah‘s power, to be able to push them back from the border, to destroy the infrastructure along the border, to change the balance of forces.”

“The most important thing that we did was to try to take out about half of the missile and rocket capabilities that he built up over the last 30 years with Iran, and to take it out in a few hours. And we did,” the official said.

“I can’t tell you what will evolve, but I can tell you that this could be a pivot. We don’t seek a broader war. In fact, we seek not to have a broader war and Iran has to consider what it does now,” the official said.

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