Israel attacks 1,300 targets as part of an expanded campaign of attacks against Hezbollah in Lebanon

LONDON — The Israeli military expanded its operations in Lebanon with hundreds of air strikes on Monday as the long-simmering border conflict with Hezbollah threatens to escalate into a larger war.

According to the Israeli military, dozens of Israeli warplanes attacked more than 1,300 targets in southern Lebanon on Monday morning.

At least 492 people have been killed and more than 1,600 injured in the ongoing attacks, including women, children and medical personnel, the Lebanese Health Ministry said. Among those killed were 35 children and 58 women, the ministry said.

Israel also announced that it had launched a targeted attack on Beirut. The airstrike on a residential building in Bir al-Abd, a southern suburb of Beirut, wounded at least six people, according to Lebanese state media.

Hezbollah officials said that commander-in-chief Ali Karaki – who Israeli sources said was the target of the attack in Beirut – survived the attack.

In a statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that Israel was changing “the security balance, the balance of power in the north.”

“For those who haven't understood yet, I want to make Israel's policy clear: We don't wait for a threat, we anticipate it,” Netanyahu said. “Everywhere, in every area, at all times. We eliminate high-ranking officials, eliminate terrorists, eliminate rockets – and our hands are helpless.”

“Whoever tries to hurt us, we will hurt them even more,” he added.

The attacks coincided with a warning by Israeli army spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari that Israel was planning further attacks on Hezbollah's “terrorist infrastructure” in the border region and elsewhere.

Hagari said civilians in Lebanese villages used by Hezbollah for military purposes should “immediately leave the danger zone for their own safety.”

Videos and photos showed heavy traffic as people tried to flee southern cities.

Following the heavy attacks in the south of the country on Monday morning, Hagari said Israeli forces would soon begin attacking targets in the eastern Bekaa Valley – another Hezbollah stronghold. Hagari claimed that every house, in addition to Israeli ammunition, contained “rockets, missiles and drones designed to kill Israeli civilians.”

Hezbollah returned fire across the border with dozens of projectiles, the Israeli army said, and alarms sounded across the region. Some pieces of ammunition were intercepted and others fell into open terrain, the force wrote on social media.

According to Israeli disaster officials, there were about 250 launches from Lebanon to Israel on Monday. Hagari said there were about 700 launches last week.

The Israeli rescue service Magen David Adom reported that at least one man was injured by shrapnel in the Lower Galilee region and another was slightly injured on the way to a shelter.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a social media post that Israel would “act with all its might” to change the current situation in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, according to Katz, “has taken the Lebanese people hostage and placed rockets and weapons in their homes and villages to threaten the Israeli civilian population.”

“This is clearly a war crime,” Katz said. “We will not accept this reality.”

“The people of Lebanon must evacuate every home that has become a Hezbollah outpost to avoid harm,” Katz continued. “We will not stop until the threat to Israeli citizens is eliminated and the residents of the north return safely to their homes.”

Thousands of Lebanese cellphone users received a text message from the Israeli army on Monday warning: “If you are in a building containing Hezbollah weapons, stay away from the village until further notice.” Similar messages were broadcast on Lebanese radio.

The new Israeli warnings come after a weekend of heavy cross-border shelling, with Hezbollah firing rockets, missiles and drones into Israel and being answered with Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon.

Fighting has been ongoing between the Israeli army and Hezbollah since October 8, when the Iranian-backed militant group began attacking Israel against Hamas in protest against Israel's invasion of the Gaza Strip. Hezbollah has said it will continue its attacks until Israeli forces withdraw from Palestinian territory.

Tens of thousands of Israelis have fled the border regions to escape Hezbollah shelling since the fighting began. Their return is a priority for Netanyahu and his government.

“We will take all necessary measures to restore security and return our people safely to their homeland,” Netanyahu said on Sunday.

In addition, Israeli politicians are demanding that Hezbollah withdraw behind the Litani River, about 30 kilometers north of the Israeli border. This was called for in a 2006 UN Security Council resolution aimed at ending the last major cross-border war.

“If the world does not withdraw Hezbollah north of the Litani area in accordance with Resolution 1701, Israel will do so,” Katz said on Sunday.

The conflict escalated last week with Israel blowing up Hezbollah communications equipment in Lebanon and Syria, which Nasrallah described as an “unprecedented blow” to the group.

Two consecutive days of explosions – which killed at least 37 people and injured 2,931, according to Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad – were followed by the killing of Hezbollah operations chief Ibrahim Aqil and 14 other members in an airstrike in Beirut.

According to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, at least 45 people were killed in the bomb attack in the Hezbollah-allied suburb of Dahiya. Among the dead were at least three children aged four, six and ten, as well as seven women. Dozens of other people were injured.

Hezbollah's leadership said it would continue its operations despite last week's setbacks.

Deputy Secretary-General Naim Qasem spoke at Aqil's funeral in Beirut on Sunday, telling hundreds of mourners that the conflict had now entered “a new phase,” which he described as “an open-ended battle of reckoning.”

“Threats will not stop us, and we are not afraid of even the most dangerous possibilities,” he continued. “We are ready to face all military scenarios.”

Israeli communities in the north of the country must prepare for further escalation. The Israeli Defense Forces issued new security guidelines and closed schools and beaches in the region on Sunday. Rambam Hospital in Haifa moved patients to an underground facility.

Over the weekend, the US State Department renewed its Level 4 travel warning for Lebanon, citing “recent explosions throughout Lebanon, including Beirut.”

The department's July warning to American citizens to “depart Lebanon while commercial options are still available” remains unchanged. “Commercial flights are currently available, but at reduced capacity,” the warning said.

“If the security situation deteriorates, commercial exit options may no longer be available.”

According to a Pentagon statement, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, in a phone call with his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant on Sunday, “reiterated the United States' commitment to Israel's right to self-defense and stressed the importance of reaching a diplomatic solution for the return of citizens to their homes in the north.”

Austin also “stressed his concern for the safety of US citizens in the region,” the Pentagon said.

ABC News' Dana Savir, Ghazi Balkiz, Joe Simonetti and Morgan Winsor contributed to this report.