GENEVA/BEIRUT: The UN refugee chief said Saturday that more than 50,000 people had fled to Syria amid escalating Zionist entity air strikes on Lebanon. “More than 50,000 Lebanese and Syrians living in Lebanon have now crossed into Syria fleeing Zionist entity air strikes,” Filippo Grandi said on X. He added that “well over 200,000 people are displaced inside Lebanon”.

A UNHCR spokesman said the total number of displaced in Lebanon had reached 211,319, including 118,000 just since Zionist entity dramatically ramped up its air strikes on Monday. Zionist entity has shifted the focus of its operation from Gaza to Lebanon, where heavy bombing has killed more than 700 people, according to Lebanon’s health ministry, as cross-border exchanges escalated over the past Thousands of residents in Beirut’s densely-packed southern suburbs camped out overnight in streets, public squares and makeshift shelters after Zionist entity ordered them out before its jets attacked the Hezbollah stronghold.

“I expected the war to expand, but I thought it would be limited to (military) targets, not civilians, homes, and children,” said south Beirut resident Rihab Naseef, 56, who spent the night in a church yard . AFP photographers saw families spend the night in the open, scenes unheard of in Lebanon’s capital since the Iran-backed Hezbollah and Zionist entity last went to war in 2006.

“I didn’t even pack any clothes, I never thought we would leave like this and suddenly find ourselves on the streets,” Naseef said. Zionist entity jets pounded Beirut’s south and its outskirts throughout the night, and Beirut woke up to the aftermath of a night at war, smoke billowing from blazes in several places.

“I’m anxious and afraid of what may happen. I left my home without knowing where I’m going, what will happen to me, and whether I will return,” Naseef said. Despite a night of intense strikes, the extent of the devastation and the casualty toll was still unclear early Saturday. Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television broadcast footage from southern Beirut that showed flattened buildings, streets filled with rubble and clouds of smoke and dust above the area known as Dahiyeh.

Both Zionist entity and US media reported that Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah was the target, although a source close to the group said he was “fine”. The group has not officially confirmed that he is still alive.

Martyrs’ Square, Beirut’s main public space, was filled with exhausted and worried families camping out in the open. “The bombing intensified at night and our house started shaking,” said an angry Hala Ezzedine, 55, who slept in the square after fleeing the Burj Al-Barajneh neighborhood in Dahiyeh where strikes took place.

“What did the (Lebanese) people do to deserve this?” she asked, adding that her home had been destroyed by Zionist entity strikes during the 2006 war. “They want to wage war but what wrong did we do?” she said after nearly a year of cross-border violence between Zionist entity and Hezbollah which says it is acting in support of its ally Hamas in Gaza. — Agencies

“We don’t have to go through what happened in Gaza,” Ezzedine said of Zionist entity’s campaign against the Hamas-run Palestinian territory that has left more than 41,500 dead, according to the health ministry there. Zionist entity’s military offensive came in response to Hamas’s October 7 attack that resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people on Zionist entity side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Zionist entity official figures that include hostages killed in captivity. – Agencies