ISRAELI air strikes on Lebanon today killed at least 274 and injured more than 1,000, it has been reported. 

This was the deadliest barrage since the 2006 Israeli war with Hezbollah and increases fears of a wider, all-out war across the Middle East.

Thousands of Lebanese fled the south, causing traffic jams on the main highway out of the port city Sidon toward Beirut, after Israel warned civilians to leave the area.

The Israeli military claimed that it hit 300 targets, saying it was going after Hezbollah weapons sites. 

But reporters on the scene confirmed that many of the strikes hit residential areas of towns in the south and the eastern Bekaa Valley.

One strike hit a wooded area as far away as Byblos in central Lebanon, more than 80 miles from the border north of Beirut.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah said it fired dozens of rockets at an Israeli military post in Galilee.

It also targeted for a second day the facilities of the Rafael defence firm, headquartered in Haifa.

On Sunday, Hezbollah launched around 150 rockets, missiles and drones into northern Israel in retaliation for strikes that killed a top commander, more than a dozen fighters and dozens of civilians, including women and children.

Last week, thousands of communication devices exploded in different parts of Lebanon, killing 39 people and wounding nearly 3,000.

Many countries joined Lebanon in blaming the attacks on Israel, which has neither confirmed or denied responsibility.

The increasing exchanges between Hezbollah and Israel have raised fears of an all-out war in the region. 

Director of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research Vijay Prashad told the Morning Star that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “is trying to gaslight the world.” 

Mr Prashad said: “He wants the genocide against the Palestinians to be seen as the West’s conflict against Iran,” adding that he “is willing to draw Lebanon into a direct war to prevent a ceasefire of his genocide.”

Former Leicester MP Claudia Webbe said: “Israel is trying to provoke regional war in order to bring the US openly into the conflict. This would appear to be its only chance of victory as it has lost the public and, lost in Gaza despite the ongoing genocide. It's time for the US and UK governments to finally reign in Netanyahu - a step that even Reagan and Thatcher were willing and able to take in the 1980s”.

Lebanese journalist Rania Khalek posted on the X social media platform: “Israel is not the victim. Israel just murdered over 100 Lebanese people in a few hours, like it was nothing, all while continuing its genocide in Gaza.”

“It’s always about Israel’s security and Israel’s right to defend itself. What about us?” 

Ms Khalek asked: “How many of us need to be murdered by this tyrannical genocidal state to be afforded the right to security and self-defence?”