Christian leaders in Lebanese city of Tyre call for quick international action after Israeli warning

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SIDON, Lebanon (AP) — Christian religious leaders from Lebanon’s southern port city of Tyre on Tuesday called on the international community and Lebanese officials to act quickly to prevent Israel from attacking the city's Christian district. Airstrikes on nearby neighborhoods killed eight people and wounded dozens of others, officials said.

The Israeli military issued an evacuation warning for the port city, including the Christian quarter, which has been spared so far.

The statement by the Christian leaders was from George Iskandar, the metropolitan archbishop of Tyre for the Melkite Greek Catholic Church; Elias Kfoury, the Greek Orthodox metropolitan of Tyre, Sidon and Dependencies; and Charbel Abdullah, the archeparch of the Maronite Catholic Archeparchy of Tyre.

The warning from Israel's military prompted hundreds of people to flee the Christian district along the Mediterranean coast, while members of the Civil Defense evacuated older people to safer areas, the state-run National News Agency said.

Cars packed with mattresses, luggage and household belongings stretched for kilometers (miles) along Lebanon’s coastal highway, as residents fled Tyre following the latest Israeli warning. Traffic ground to a halt as families crammed whatever they could into vehicles, with carpets protruding from rooftops, and trunks left partially open to accommodate furniture and personal belongings.

“After the warnings in Tyre, we left. We picked up and left,” said Ali Bahar, who was traveling with his wife and three children in a car loaded with possessions.

“Where should we go? There is nowhere to go,” he said. “We will end up in the streets. We are heading to Sidon.”

Nearby, Hussein Darwish sat in the gridlock after packing his vehicle with what he could carry. “We left to be reassured and safe,” he said.

An Israeli airstrike Tuesday in another neighborhood in Tyre killed eight people and wounded 32 others, according to the Health Ministry.

The three Christian leaders called on the international community and Lebanese leaders to “take immediate and serious action to spare the old quarter of Tyre from destruction and human tragedies.”

The Israeli warning to Tyre came after Israel and Iran traded fire following Israel's targeting of Hezbollah in Beirut on Sunday, triggering heightened tensions in the Middle East and fears that the conflict could spread further.

Over the past few weeks, Israel’s airstrikes have caused wide destruction in Tyre, the fourth-largest city in the country.

Considered one of the oldest metropolises in the world, Tyre has several archaeological sites, some of them submerged. The city was officially declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984.

“The old city is not merely a residential area,” the clergy said in their statement. “It is the historical and human heart of Tyre, home to thousands of civilians, including families, children, and the elderly.”

They said the old quarter also holds a rich cultural, religious and civilizational heritage dating back centuries. “Any targeting or destruction of this neighborhood would constitute a humanitarian and national catastrophe with irreversible consequences,” they warned.

Kfoury said the ongoing conflict isn't only a war on Hezbollah. “The war is against all of Lebanon, not just one particular group within Lebanon,” he said.

“They are destroying Lebanon. Period,” Kfoury said about the ongoing Israel-Hezbollah war that broke out on March 2, when Hezbollah fired rockets at northern Israel two days after the U.S. and Israel began attacking Iran on Feb. 28.

He said the fighting should stop because it's a “destructive war.”

Last week, Israel warned the Christian neighborhoods in Tyre that Hezbollah members were among them. Many Lebanese Shiite Muslims fled to those areas over the past two weeks, because they were spared from the aerial bombardment along the Mediterranean coast.

After last week’s warning, the Lebanese army deployed to the Christian district of Tyre to try and prevent Israeli attacks there and to show that Hezbollah has no armed presence in the area.

On Tuesday, the Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, posted on X that as the military warned days ago that Hezbollah members were working inside the Christian district, the Israeli military “will have to act against their terrorist activities in the neighborhood soon.”

Adraee said that any building used by Hezbollah for military purposes “may be subject to targeting.”

Later on Tuesday, Israeli media outlets, including The Jerusalem Post, quoted Israel’s far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir as proposing the arrest of family members of Hezbollah fighters. Ben-Gvir told members of Israel's parliament that the arrest of women and youth would hurt Hezbollah members the most.

Ben-Gvir's office confirmed when contacted by The Associated Press that he made the comments in a closed security discussion that leaked but declined further comment saying the office does not comment on internal discussions.

The latest Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon has killed around 3,500 people and displaced more than 1.2 million.

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Mroue reported from Beirut. Associated Press writer Koral Saeed contributed to this report from Herzliya, Israel.