SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Israel continued airstrikes in Beirut overnight, hitting what it said were Hezbollah targets, mostly in the city's southern suburbs. Entire buildings were leveled. Most residents there have fled, many to Lebanon's north. But for the first time since the conflict erupted nearly a year ago, Israel has launched airstrikes in Lebanon. NPR's Jane Arraf joins us from the port city of Tripoli. Jane, thank you for being with us.
JANE ARRAF, BYLINE: Thank you, Scott.
SIMON: What have you seen? What happened overnight?
ARRAF: Well, early this morning, an Israeli airstrike hit a Palestinian refugee camp just on the outskirts of Tripoli. Tripoli is Lebanon's second-biggest city. And it is, as you mentioned, in the north of the country. A lot of the displaced have been flooding north from the south, but a lot of them still stopping in Beirut and other places. But now we're seeing a different kind of dynamic here, more people coming from the south to Tripoli. And that strike this morning was the furthest north that Israel has hit. It said it was targeting a Hamas commander. Hamas said it killed the commander, the strike did, along with his wife and two young children. And it has people here really rattled. We're in a public square. Some families here who came to escape...
(SOUNDBITE OF MOTORCYCLE)
ARRAF: Sorry, lots of people on motorcycles - and families who came to escape the fighting. One family had two little kids who turned to what appeared to be their aunt and said, are they going to bomb here, too? So things are widening.
SIMON: Well, tell us about the widening of Israeli attacks if you could.
ARRAF: Well, Hezbollah, as you know, has been fighting Israel. The two sides have traded attacks on the border - the Lebanese-Israeli border since the war in Gaza began a year ago. But recently - in the past two weeks, in fact - Israel has focused strikes in Lebanon in the southern suburbs of Beirut where it killed Hezbollah commander Hassan Nasrallah, and it has continued to target that neighborhood to the point where their entire apartment complex is demolished and almost no one left living there. All of those people have flooded out of those southern suburbs, and they've joined the people who have left villages in the south of Lebanon, where Israel has been attacking and telling civilians that they have to leave. Israel lately has been striking, not just Hezbollah targets, but also Palestinian Hamas targets and others. And that, too, is creating a very unsettled feeling here.
We spoke to one man here. His name was Rakad (ph). Like most people, he didn't give his full name because they're afraid of being targeted. And he explained to us why he and his family left the south a few days ago.
RAKAD: (Through interpreter) We came because all of Doueir (ph) and all of the south are being destroyed. Destruction everywhere. No place is safe. The Israelis are bombing.
SIMON: Jane, it's been almost a year since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, and now we see Israel fighting the Iranian-backed militia, Hezbollah. How did one event lead to the other?
ARRAF: Well, as soon as the war in Gaza started, Hezbollah jumped in, in support of Hamas, the Palestinian group, and it has been trading attacks with Israel across the Lebanese-Israeli border for the entire time. Recently what we've seen is an escalation of Israeli attacks here in Lebanon aimed at both killing the Hezbollah leadership but also going after allied groups as well. Those attacks have been widening both geographically and in terms of targeting, and obviously, that has been very devastating along that border. On both sides, civilians have been evacuated. There has been destruction. What we're seeing now, though, appears to be an escalation of even that.
SIMON: NPR's Jane Arraf in Tripoli. Thanks so much for being with us.
ARRAF: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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