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

The Israel Defense Forces ordered Palestinian civilians to evacuate northern Gaza early Sunday.

IDF spokesperson Avichay Adraee wrote on X that the northern region of the territory "is still considered a dangerous combat zone."

"The IDF will continue to operate forcefully against terrorist organizations wherever they operate within the Gaza Strip," he added.

The IDF later announced that its forces encircled the Jabaliya area in the northern strip overnight.

Aircraft "attacked dozens of military targets in aid of the maneuvering forces, including munitions warehouses, underground infrastructures, terrorist squads and other military infrastructures," it wrote on social media.

The IDF said it re-opened two evacuation routes out of the north of the strip -- one along the Salah al-Din Road and the other along the Al-Rashid coastal road.

The force also said it expanded the Al-Mawasi humanitarian zone in the northern part of the territory.

Civil defense crews in northern Gaza said they could not handle the overwhelming number of rescue calls Saturday night because of the intensity of the bombing and a lack of equipment.

The civil defense said multiple strikes -- focused particularly in Jabalia refugee camp -- have killed at least 14 people, with many more under the rubble and or not reached by rescue and recovery crews yet. They have not yet put a number to those killed at the UNRWA Jabalia Services Center which was struck, which houses displaced people.

Israel Defense Forces released a statement saying it had conducted a strike on a UNRWA center which they said Hamas militants were operating in.

"A short while ago, with the direction of IDF intelligence, the IAF conducted a precise strike on Hamas terrorists who were operating inside a command and control center in the area of Jabaliya in the northern Gaza Strip. The command and control center, which was embedded inside a compound that previously served as an UNRWA center, was used by the Hamas terrorists to plan and execute terrorist attacks against IDF troops and the State of Israel," the IDF said.
"Prior to the strike, numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance, and additional intelligence information."

-ABC News' Samy Zyara

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.