Israel and Hezbollah Renew Fire After the Deadliest Day in Lebanon Since 2006

Israel and Hezbollah traded strikes again Tuesday, a day after a massive Israeli bombardment killed nearly 500 people, sent thousands fleeing from southern Lebanon, and put the two sides on the brink of all-out war.

Displaced families slept in shelters hastily set up in schools in Beirut and the coastal city of Sidon. With hotels quickly booked to capacity or rooms priced beyond the means of many families, those who did not find shelter slept in their cars, in parks, or along the seaside.

Well-wishers offered up empty apartments or rooms in their houses in social media posts, while volunteers set up a kitchen at an empty gas station in Beirut to cook meals for the displaced.

In the eastern city of Baalbek, the state-run National News Agency reported that lines formed at bakeries and gas stations as residents rushed to stock up on essential supplies in anticipation of another round of strikes on Tuesday.

The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said it launched missiles overnight at eight sites in Israel, including an explosives factory in Zichron, 60 kilometers (37 miles) from the border.

The Israeli military said Tuesday morning that 55 rockets were fired from Lebanon into northern Israel, setting fires and damaging buildings. Military officials said they carried out dozens of airstrikes on Hezbollah targets, including on a cell that fired rockets overnight, and that tanks and artillery struck targets near the border.

Galilee Medical Center, a northern Israel hospital, said that two patients arrived with minor head injuries from a rocket falling near their car. Several others were being treated for light wounds from running to shelters and traffic accidents when alarms sounded.

The renewed exchange came after Monday’s historic barrages racked up the highest death toll in any single day in Lebanon since Israel and Hezbollah fought a bruising monthlong war in 2006.

Israel said it targeted sites where Hezbollah had stored weapons. Data from American fire-tracking satellites analyzed Tuesday by The Associated Press showed the wide range of Israeli airstrikes aimed at southern Lebanon, covering an area of over 1,700 square kilometers (650 square miles).

NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System typically is used to track wildfires across rural areas of the U.S. However, it can also be used to track the flashes and burning that follow airstrikes. That’s particularly true when an airstrike ignites flammable material on the ground, such as munitions or fuel.

Data from Monday showed significant fires breaking out across southern Lebanon and in the Bekaa Valley. Several areas showed intense, multiple fires, including near the southern coastal town of Naqoura, which hosts a base for the U.N. peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon known as UNIFIL. Others were in mountainous rural areas or villages.

The sides appear on the verge of war again after tensions have steadily escalated over the last 11 months. Hezbollah has been firing rockets, missiles, and drones into northern Israel in solidarity with the Palestinians and its ally Hamas, a fellow Iran-backed militant group, in Gaza.