A source close to Hezbollah said Israel had conducted 11 consecutive strikes on the group's south Beirut stronghold late Thursday, in one of the most violent raids since Israel intensified its bombardment campaign last week.
AFP correspondents in the capital and beyond heard loud bangs that made car alarms go off and building shake.
About an hour later, AFP journalists heard several explosions coming from the direction of the southern suburbs after the Israeli military ordered residents of the Hadath neighbourhood to evacuate.
"Israel struck the southern suburbs 11 consecutive times," the source said on the condition of anonymity.
AFP footage showed giant balls of flame rising from the targeted site with thick smoke billowing and flares shooting out.
Lebanon's official National News Agency (NNA) said "more than 10 consecutive strikes have been recorded so far, in one of the strongest raids on the southern suburbs of Beirut since the start of the Israeli war on Lebanon".
The strikes echoed to mountain regions outside Beirut, the NNA said.
Earlier Thursday, Israeli army Arabic-language spokesperson Avichay Adraee had issued an "urgent warning" for residents of the south Beirut area of Burj al-Barajneh to evacuate along with maps of the area. He later issued an evacuation order for the Hadath neighbourhood of Beirut's south.
"You are located near facilities and interests belonging to Hezbollah, and the IDF (Israeli army) will work against them in the near future," he had said in a statement on X.
Earlier in the evening, a source close to Hezbollah said another Israeli strike had targeted a warehouse next to Beirut airport, in the capital's south.
"An Israeli air strike targeted a warehouse adjacent to the airport," the source told AFP, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. It was unclear what the warehouse contained.
Earlier in the afternoon, the NNA had reported several "enemy raids".
A source close to the group had told AFP that the earlier strikes had "targeted a building housing Hezbollah's media relations office", which had already been evacuated.
Lebanon says Israel strike on Syria border cuts off international road
Lebanon said an Israeli air strike on the Syrian border on Friday cut off the main international road linking the two countries.
Coastal Lebanon shares a border with Israel, with which Hezbollah is at war, and Syria, where tens of thousands of people have taken refuge from the violence engulfing the country.
Israel has said Hezbollah uses the road to bring weapons across the border from Syria, with which it is allied.
"The road that leads to the main humanitarian crossing for thousands of Lebanese into Syria is now cut off after an Israeli strike," Transport Minister Ali Hamieh told AFP.
The official National News Agency also reported the strike, saying that "enemy warplanes hit the Masnaa area", as the crossing is known, "cutting off the road
This week, Israel announced that its troops had started "ground raids" into parts of southern Lebanon, after days of heavy bombardment of Hezbollah strongholds around the country.
After nearly a year of low-intensity cross-border fighting, Israel has expanded its military campaign from Gaza to Lebanon, where heavy bombing has killed more than 1,000 people and forced hundreds of thousands to flee.
Israel last week killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in south Beirut, a densely populated area before residents fled Israel's intensifying bombardment.
Palestinian health ministry says 18 killed in Israeli strike on West Bank
On the other hand, at least 18 people were killed in the West Bank refugee camp of Tulkarm, the Palestinian health ministry said late Thursday, following an air strike that the Israeli military claimed killed a local Hamas leader.
A source within the Palestinian security services told AFP that the air raid was the deadliest in the West Bank since 2000.
"Eighteen martyrs following the bombing of the Tulkarm camp by the occupation," the Palestinian health ministry said on its Telegram account.
The Israeli army confirmed the strike on the town in the northern West Bank, describing it as a joint operation carried out by the Shin Bet internal security service and the air force, according to a brief statement by the military.
The Israeli military later said the strike had killed a Hamas leader in Tulkarm -- Zahi Yaser Abd al-Razeq Oufi.
The army accused Oufi participating in numerous attacks in the West Bank and said he was in the process of planning another assault.
"Alongside Oufi, multiple other significant terrorists who were part of the terror network in Tulkarm were eliminated," the statement said.
Hamas condemned the air strike, calling it a "cruel attack" that would prove to be a "dangerous escalation".
Reached by telephone, camp official Faisal Salama told AFP that the attack had been carried out by an F-16 fighter jet.
Alaa Sroji -- a social activist from the area -- said the Israeli plane had "hit a cafeteria in a four-story building."
"There are many victims in the hospital," the resident added, saying the toll would likely rise.
The Palestinian movement Fatah, a Hamas rival based in the occupied West Bank, called for demonstrations on Friday to honour the "heroic martyrs" of Tulkarm.
Tulkarm was one of the towns and Palestinian refugee camps targeted during a large-scale Israeli military operation in late August against militants based in the West Bank.
Violence in the West Bank has surged alongside the war in Gaza which began after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7.
Since the Hamas assault, Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 701 Palestinians in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
At least 24 Israelis, including members of the security forces, have been killed in Palestinian militant attacks during the same period, Israeli officials say.
Major Israeli operations in the West Bank are sometimes occurring "at a scale not witnessed in the last two decades," United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk said last month.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, and its forces regularly make incursions into Palestinian communities, but the current raids as well as comments by Israeli officials mark an escalation, residents say.
