Fear and tension in Lebanon under deadly Israeli bombardment

Across southern Lebanon, families scrambled together belongings and headed north in cars and trucks and on motorcycles as the Israeli military struck targets it said were linked to the Lebanese Shia armed group Hezbollah.

Some residents reported receiving warnings in the form of text messages and voice recordings from the Israeli military to leave areas near the Iran-backed group’s positions.

Zahra Sawli, a student in the southern town of Nabatieh told the BBC’s Newshour programme the bombardment was intense.

“I woke up at 6am to the sound of bombing. By noon it started to get really intense and I saw a lot of strikes in my area.”

“I heard a lot of glass shattering.”

Unlike many, she and those she was with did not leave the house – they didn’t dare, she said.

“Where are we supposed to go? A lot of people are still stuck on the streets. A lot of my friends are still stuck in traffic because a lot of people are trying to flee,” she said.

By the middle of the day roads north towards Beirut were clogged with traffic, with vehicles heading towards the capital on both sides of a six-lane coastal highway.

Other images showed people walking along the beach in the southern city of Tyre as smoke rose from air strikes in the countryside inland.

The BBC spoke to one family of five who had arrived in Beirut on a single motorbike.

From a village in the south, they were heading to Tripoli in the north. They were exhausted.

“What do you want us to say? We just had to flee,” the father said.