Israel-Gaza-Lebanon updates: IDF orders evacuations in Beirut as huge blast hits city

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a statement in Hebrew addressed Iran’s attack on Israel, saying, "No other country in the world would have accepted such attacks against its territory, and the same applies for Israel."

"Israel has the duty and the right to respond to these attacks and so we will," he said.

"The way we will respond to this heinous attack will be in a place and time of our choosing, according to the directives of the political echelon," Israel Defense Forces spokesman Daniel Hagari said Saturday.

Hagari said Iranian missiles hit both Nevatim and Tel Nof airbases on Tuesday but no planes or operational systems were affected.

Israel carried out more than a dozen strikes Saturday on Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahieh, a Hezbollah stronghold and densely populated area, following another night of explosions and strikes near Beirut’s international airport.

Over 1,000 people in Lebanon have been killed by Israeli forces in the last two weeks, while thousands more have been injured and over 1 million are displaced, according to figures released by the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health. Many families with young children have been forced to camp out on the streets of Beirut, in cars, on the beach or alongside roads.

As the Israeli military carried out fresh strikes on the Lebanese capital, fighting raged on between Israeli troops and Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon, where Israel has launched a ground offensive. The region is also bracing for Israel’s response to Iran’s missile barrage earlier this week.

Twenty-five people were killed and 127 others were injured in Lebanon on Friday as a result of Israeli strikes, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health.

This is the lowest daily death toll this week, with the death toll trending down in recent days. Even so, in the last seven days, at least 409 people were killed, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health.

Hezbollah is continuing to fire rockets into Israel; the terror group declared at least seven attacks on Saturday.

Some rockets or interceptors hit residential houses in Karmiel in northern Israel and in the neighboring Arab village of Deir al-Assad, according to Israeli fire and rescue services.

The Israeli military said two projectiles were identified in the area: one intercepted and one falling "in an open area.”