A CNN analysis of the Israeli military’s evacuation order found that at least seven hospitals, including Al-Rasoul Al-Azam Hospital and St. Therese Hospital, are located in the Israeli military-imposed exclusion zone on the southern outskirts of the Lebanese capital. It turns out that there is something.
The danger zone on the southern outskirts of Beirut is a residential area that is also a seat of power for Hezbollah and covers an area of about 9 square kilometers (3.4 square miles).
CNN analyzed a total of 39 evacuation orders issued by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF)’s Arabic spokesperson, Avichai Adlai, on the night of October 6, which have been issued almost every day since September 27 in a post by X.
The posts typically warn residents to “immediately” evacuate the specific building that will be targeted and flee to an area greater than 500 meters away from the target. The satellite image embedded in the post shows the building in question highlighted in red.
For the past 10 days, such warnings have been issued before airstrikes, sometimes within minutes. No such warning was issued in other cases, particularly the two strikes that occurred within Beirut city limits for the first time since the 2006 war. CNN reached out to the Israeli military for comment on the matter at the time, but did not receive a response.
By the evening of October 6, CNN had confirmed the locations of 39 buildings that the Israeli military had identified as being near Hezbollah targets, measured a 500-meter radius around each building, and calculated the total area from which civilians were ordered to evacuate. . The city’s southern suburbs, known as Dahieh, total an area of 8.9 square kilometers (3.4 square miles).
The eastern part of Dahieh has been the epicenter of the airstrikes announced so far, with some striking very close to Lebanon’s only public airport.
The Israeli military has not yet given residents guidance on when they can return to the affected areas.
CNN also found that some infographics initially shared by the Israeli military with the evacuation order were inaccurate. The graphic appears to indicate a 500 meter zone around the affected building where residents must evacuate for safety. A red circle appears around the highlighted building, with a dotted line annotated in Arabic as “500 meters.” In reality, the radius of the buffer zone highlighted in these cases was only around 100 meters. This was also the case for six separate evacuation orders until the IDF stopped including illustrations of exclusion zones in their graphics. CNN has reached out to the IDF for comment.
