With mass evacuation warnings, Israel upends lives and reshapes south Lebanon

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. The United Nations says large numbers of people remain displaced across the country, including over 150,000 in tent camps.

“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.”

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.

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Associated Press journalist Bassam Hatoum contributed.