BEIRUT — At least 700 people, including women and children, have been killed and approximately 2,600 others injured amid ongoing, wide-scale Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon that have rendered the situation in the country “catastrophic,” according to the United Nations. More than 120,000 people are believed to have fled their home amid heavy fighting in the southern and eastern parts of the country, according to local authorities. 

“We are witnessing the deadliest period in Lebanon in a generation, and many express their fear that this is just the beginning,” said Imran Riza, the United Nations' humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon, in a Friday press release.

Israel has expanded the scope of its airstrikes since Monday, initially hitting thousands of Hezbollah targets in the south and to the east in the Bekaa Valley and in the previously untargeted districts of Keserwan and Jbeil (Byblos), north of Beirut.

In the past week, Hezbollah, engaged in cross-border exchanges of fire with Israel since last October, has announced the killing of several of its top commanders, including the head of its Aerial Command, Mohammad Hussein Srour, in an Israeli airstrike in the southern suburbs of Beirut on Thursday.