Nearly 700,000 flee Israeli strikes in Lebanon.

By EUAN WARD, PAUL SONNE, ERIKA SALOMON and ERIC SCHMITT

Nearly 700,000 people have been driven from their homes in Lebanon, the United Nations said Tuesday, as Israel’s mass evacuation orders and bombing campaign transform the country into a major new front in the expanding Middle East war.

Israeli airstrikes pounded Lebanon anew, sending residents fleeing for safety and prompting warnings of a growing humanitarian crisis. Bombing also continued in Iran, where a resident warned that “if they keep hitting Tehran like this for another 10 days, nothing will remain.” In Washington, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth vowed those attacks would go on and said that Tuesday would be the “most intense day” of U.S. strikes since the start of the war.

In Beirut and its densely packed surrounding area, tens of thousands of people fleeing Israel’s attacks on the Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah were living in schools and government buildings, while others slept in cars and on sidewalks along the city’s seaside promenade.

More than 667,000 people have registered on the Lebanese government’s online displacement platform, the U.N. migration agency said Tuesday, citing government figures. That included more than 100,000 in the past 24 hours, the agency said.

The Trump administration has started to loosen restrictions on Russian oil exports in a bid to temper rising gas prices, in the latest signal that the consequences of the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran were cascading into other crises. The easing of Russian oil sanctions, which were intended to help force an end to the war in Ukraine, includes a 30-day waiver for India to buy Russian oil already at sea without retaliation from Washington. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said the United States was considering lifting more sanctions on Russian oil.

On Tuesday, Hegseth said that the U.S. military was giving President Donald Trump “maximum options” to conduct the war. Hegseth, who said last week that the conflict could last three to eight weeks, argued that it was up to Trump to assess whether “it’s the beginning, the middle or the end.”

There was no talk of diplomatic efforts to end a conflict that has killed more than 1,800 people and seriously disrupted global energy markets.

After the president said on social media that the United States would hit Iran “twenty times harder” if it tried to stop the flow of oil, Ali Larijani, Iran’s top national security official, warned Trump to “take care of yourself, so that you are not eliminated.”

Israel’s military announced a new wave of strikes in Tehran, the Iranian capital, on Tuesday after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said that he hoped the Iranian people would oust the Islamic Republic and that “ultimately, it is up to them” on when the war would end.

Retaliatory strikes from Iran continued to batter countries in the Persian Gulf as the conflict raged into its 11th day.

Here’s what else we’re covering:

— Strait of Hormuz: Fighting has slowed ship traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, the conduit for about one-fifth of the world’s oil. Chris Wright, the U.S. energy secretary, posted on social media Tuesday afternoon that the U.S. Navy had “successfully escorted” an oil tanker through the strait, but the post was deleted minutes later, and U.S. Central Command said it was not true. Warships from Pakistan, which relies heavily on energy imports from the Gulf, were escorting merchant vessels Tuesday to ensure access to energy supplies.

— Death toll: U.S. and Israeli strikes have killed about 1,300 people in Iran, according to Iranian officials, while Iranian attacks across the Middle East have killed at least 30. Israeli strikes have killed almost 500 people in Lebanon, state media reported.

— Health fears: Strikes on Iranian fuel depots led to dark plumes of smoke, black rain and sanitary concerns for local residents. “The war has entered our throats,” one said.

— School strike: A newly released video added to the evidence that it was most likely a U.S. missile that hit an Iranian elementary school where 175 people, many of them children, were reported killed. The evidence contradicts Trump’s claim that Iran was responsible for the strike.