With mass evacuation warnings, Israel upends lives and reshapes south
Lebanon
[May 01, 2026]
By ISABEL DEBRE
HARET SAIDA, Lebanon (AP) — The warnings to flee come suddenly: Texts
pinging thousands of phones, automated calls from strange numbers,
hard-to-read maps shared on social media by an Israeli military
spokesperson.
Some maps cover broad swaths of Lebanon; others show specific buildings.
Sometimes there is no warning at all before strikes, which have
continued despite a nominal ceasefire between Israel and the Iran-backed
Hezbollah militant group.
The warnings cause a rush to collect children and older relatives, and
leave families with agonizing choices as they race for the blurry edges
of the red-shaded maps. Entire villages have emptied, with over a
million people fleeing at the height of the fighting. Unlike Israel,
Lebanon has no air raid sirens or missile defenses, and no designated
bomb shelters.
Israel says the warnings aim to keep civilians out of harm's way. It
says Hezbollah has positioned fighters, tunnels and weapons in civilian
areas across southern Lebanon, from which it has launched hundreds of
drones and missiles — without warning — into northern Israel.
International law experts say Israel's warnings are inconsistent and
often overly broad and open-ended. They also come as Israel says it
plans to occupy a 10 kilometer (6-mile) wide buffer zone along the
border and prevent people from returning until the threat from Hezbollah
has been eliminated.
Alerts spark panicked flights
The latest war erupted on March 2, when, after holding its fire since a
2024 truce, Hezbollah launched a surprise barrage of missiles into
northern Israel in retaliation for the United States and Israel
attacking Iran.
Israel has posted 132 online alerts since then — including seven
covering over 50 towns in southern Lebanon since the ceasefire took
effect on April 17.
Residents say the narrowly targeted warnings often come with short
notice, causing chaos and confusion.
Ward Zein al-Din, 56, said that she heard glass shatter from shrapnel
just minutes after her father received a call from the Israeli military
that made him scream. They have since fled their southern village and
taken shelter in a school. “I didn’t think we would survive,” she said.
Then there are the maps shared on social media by Israel's
Arabic-speaking military spokesperson, Lt. Col. Avichay Adraee, urging
the entire population to relocate north of the Litani River, some 30
kilometers (20 miles) from the border, and in some cases even further
north.
His blanket warnings also emptied out Beirut's crowded southern suburbs,
where Hezbollah has a strong presence, though many people have since
returned. Large numbers of people remain displaced across the country,
including over 115,000 in collective shelters, according to United
Nations spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.
“A legal tool is being used to achieve forced displacement,” said
Hussein Badreddine, a Lebanese expert in international law at the
University of Sydney. “When you evacuate entire areas and keep the
orders open-ended, that’s when the legality comes into question.”
In response to numerous questions, the Israeli military said it issues
warnings by phone, text, radio broadcast, social media and leaflets
dropped from the air, in accordance with the “principles of distinction,
proportionality and feasible precautions” under international law.
No warning before strikes that killed more than 350 people
There was no warning on April 8, when Israel struck a hundred targets in
rapid succession, killing more than 350 people, including in downtown
Beirut. It was one of the deadliest attacks in Lebanon's troubled
history.
The military said Hezbollah commanders and operatives “were expected to
be present at many of the sites.” It remains unclear how many Hezbollah
members were killed. More than 100 of those killed were women and
children.
There have also been warnings without strikes. Earlier this month,
Israel warned it would attack the main border crossing between Lebanon
and Syria, forcing it to close for several days. The strike never came.
A dreaded late-night post
Airstrikes shook the village of Kafr Tebnit when the war broke out.
Adraee posted on X that residents should move to “no less than 1,000
meters (yards) outside the village.”
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Hussein Farran whose six members of his family were killed in a
Israeli airstrike in Kfar Hatta village, visits their graves at a
cemetery where civilians and Hezbollah fighters are temporary buried
in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, Tuesday, April 14,
2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
Hussein Farran headed to the city of Nabatiyeh, where he works for
an electricity company. His wife, Rola Nahleh, and their 4-year-old
daughter, Amal, joined relatives in Kfar Hatta, some 17 kilometers
(10 miles) outside Adraee's red zone.
A month later, at 11:29 p.m. on April 4, Adraee called on residents
to leave Kfar Hatta. It was one of 26 urgent warnings throughout the
war posted between 10:30 p.m. and 6:30 a.m.
“When warnings are issued in the middle of the night, on platforms
that not everyone uses, you can't expect everyone to get up and
leave immediately,” said Kristine Beckerle of Amnesty International.
“You have people stuck on the road for 12, 13 hours trying to leave.
You have elderly people who can't move quickly.”
Nahleh told her husband by phone that hundreds of people were
fleeing, many wearing their pajamas. They agreed it was safest to
wait out the chaos until daybreak.
Two Israeli missiles hit their apartment at around 3 a.m., killing
Nahleh, her mother, father, brother, sister and Amal, who had just
started kindergarten.
“Even if they gave us a warning, how does it justify killing a
civilian family?” Farran asked, gazing at their graves — cardboard
signs smeared with handwritten Arabic because the war has made a
proper burial in their village impossible.
“They weren't given a real chance,” he said.
‘No safety,’ even after the truce
At first, Ali al-Salim thought it was a prank call, or a scammer
trying to rob his abandoned house, as happened to his family during
a previous war. The country code said Germany, but the caller
identified himself as an Israeli officer and told al-Salim to
evacuate north immediately.
As airstrikes inched closer, al-Salim, his wife and three sons fled
their southern village of Siddiqin and arrived at a school in Haret
Saida after 18 hours in bumper-to-bumper traffic.
Analysts say the Israeli military often uses randomly generated
international numbers since phone calls are not permitted between
the two countries, technically at war for decades.
“There is no way to know if a call is real or fake,” said Roland Abi
Najem, a Lebanese cybersecurity expert. “The Israeli military
benefits from the chaos that helps create a mass exodus.”
The military declined to comment on how it calls Lebanese numbers.
Several days after fleeing, al-Salim heard that his home was hit by
an Israeli missile. The shelter proved just as dangerous.
One of the targets that Israel hit without warning on April 8 was a
neighboring Shiite mosque, where displaced people took showers. The
explosion knocked al-Salim’s 14-year-old son, Ali, unconscious and
shredded his left leg.
“The bombing can happen at any moment. There is no safety at all,”
said Ali, now using crutches. “I've never felt this kind of fear.”
The ceasefire has done little to dispel it.
Forced to flee his southern hometown of Shaqra at the start of the
war, Mohammad Shahadat waited a week into the ceasefire to return.
Encouraged by neighbors who said the situation was calm, he made the
journey home last week.
Days later, he was back in a flimsy tent in Beirut after another
Israeli warning.
“We didn't know where to go,” he said.
___
Associated Press journalist Bassam Hatoum contributed.
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