BAALBEK, Lebanon: Strikes rocked the eastern Lebanese city of Baalbek and its outskirts on Wednesday, an AFP correspondent reported, hours after Zionist entity issued an evacuation call for the area. Baalbek mayor Mustafa al-Shall confirmed strikes hit the city and its surroundings, while state media said “enemy warplanes launched a series of strikes on the Asira area of the city of Baalbek” and in a nearby town.

Earlier Wednesday, Baalbek residents rushed out of their homes after the Zionist entity army ordered Lebanon’s biggest eastern city and its outskirts evacuated for the first time in more than a month of war. The Zionist entity army urged residents of Baalbek and surrounding villages to leave immediately, warning it was preparing attacks on Hezbollah targets.

The main roads out of the city were jammed with vehicles as civilians fled in panic, an AFP correspondent reported. Civil defense vehicles drove around the city urging everyone to leave immediately over loudspeaker. Mosques and churches delivered the same message over their loudspeakers. The city was almost empty, the correspondent said about an hour after the evacuation warning. Before the evacuation order, the war had forced 60 percent of its estimated 250,000 residents to flee, an official previously told AFP, while the rest were mainly crammed into the city’s majority neighborhoods.

“The (Zionist entity army) will act forcefully against Hezbollah interests within your city and villages”, military spokesman Avichay Adraee said in a post on X. The post included a map of the entire city and its outskirts. Known as Heliopolis (City of the Sun) in ancient times, Baalbek boasts one of the world’s largest complex of Roman temples—designated a World Heritage site by UNESCO. Bilal Raad, the regional head of the Lebanese civil defense, said the largely volunteer force had been calling on residents to leave via megaphones after receiving phone calls from someone identifying themselves as being from the Zionist entity military.

"People are all over each other, the whole city is in a panic trying to figure out where to go, there's a huge traffic jam," he said ahead of the bombardment. Some of the areas they are fleeing to are already full of displaced people. Antoine Habchi, a lawmaker representing Christian-majority Deir al-Ahmar to the northwest of Baalbek, said more than 10,000 people were already sheltering in homes, schools and churches. "We welcome everyone, of course, but we need immediate government help so that these people don't stay out in the cold," he told Reuters. For a third straight day, Hezbollah reported intense fighting with Zionist entity forces in or around the southern town of Khiyam - the deepest Zionist entity's troops have been reported to have penetrated into Lebanon since fighting began.

On Monday, Lebanon’s health ministry said at least 60 people were killed in Zionist entity raids on the eastern Bekaa Valley, most of them in the Baalbek region. After nearly a year of cross-border fire with Hezbollah, Zionist entity last month ramped up strikes on the group’s strongholds and then sent ground forces across the border. The war has killed at least 1,754 people in Lebanon since September 23, according to an AFP tally of health ministry figures, though the real number is likely to be higher due to gaps in the data. – Agencies