Israeli strikes have hit a hotel in the Lebanese capital and a residential complex in Lebanon’s east killing at least 11, as the military issued more forced displacement orders across the country and advanced further into Lebanese territory.

Israeli forces bombed the Comfort Hotel on the border of Hazmieh and Baabda, which are part of greater Beirut, Lebanese state media said Wednesday.

Footage verified by Al Jazeera showed a building with blown-out windows and walls, and debris strewn everywhere.

Al Jazeera’s Heidi Pett, reporting from Beirut, said the attack happened without any warning, indicating that this could have been an attempted assassination.

“The Israeli military is yet to say exactly who or what it was attempting to target,” Pett said.

There have been further attacks on Beirut’s southern suburbs on Wednesday. Israel says it’s targeting Hezbollah in the densely populated civilian area.

The Israeli military said it is carrying out more attacks on what it called Hezbollah's “infrastructure in Beirut”.

More than 50 people have now been killed in Lebanon in Israeli attacks since this front of the war ignited.

Lebanese army officials told Al Jazeera that at least four people were wounded, including one in critical condition.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesperson issued new forced displacement orders for residents of the Haret Hreik neighbourhood in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

The spokesperson released a map of the Lebanese capital with buildings marked in red and warned that people should flee the site, claiming it was “affiliated with Hezbollah”.

The Israeli military also issued an “urgent warning”, calling on people to leave 16 towns in southern Lebanon. It later called on residents in an additional 13 towns in Lebanon’s south to evacuate.

This comes in addition to forced displacement orders issued on Tuesday for more than 50 towns across southern Lebanon that would allow Israel to establish a larger buffer zone there.

Sources told Al Jazeera on Wednesday that the Israeli army had advanced into Lebanese territory from seven positions along the border. This comes a day after the military said its troops were operating a ground incursion as part of a “forward defence” measure.

Lebanese state media reported that the Israeli military entered the town of Khiam in south Lebanon, about 6km (3.7 miles) from the border, as town came under continuous shelling.

In the eastern city of Baalbek, which is close to the Syrian border, at least five people were killed and 15 were wounded in a strike on a residential building in the al-Matraba neighbourhood.

Footage from the scene, verified by Al Jazeera, shows the debris of a collapsed multistorey building as rescue workers begin to look through the rubble.

The ⁠Syrian ⁠land and sea ports authority said it ⁠closed its border crossing with Lebanon for departures after ‌receiving a warning from Israel that it may target ⁠the crossing.

A media official at the Jdeidet ‌Yabous border crossing was quoted by Reuters as saying that arrivals remained ⁠open as Syrians ⁠were fleeing from Lebanon. The neighbouring country hosted up to 2 million Syrian refugees who fled the civil war since 2011.

A separate Israeli air attack on Aramoun and Saadiyat, in the Mount Lebanon area, killed at least six people and wounded eight, according to Lebanon’s Al Mayadeen television.

Lebanese Minister of Social Affairs Haneen Sayed told Al Jazeera that the government registered around 65,000 people in displacement who were being accommodated in 350 shelters. Another 10,000 to 20,000 people were estimated to be living on the streets or to have found shelter with relatives or friends.

Sayed said so far the number was lower than in nearly two months of war with Israel in 2024, when up to 1.2 million people fled their homes. “We’re not there and hopefully we won’t reach that number,” Sayed said.

Hezbollah fires at northern Israel
Hezbollah claimed in the early hours of Wednesday to have fired rockets at Israeli forces in the town of Metulla in northern Israel after carrying out a missile attack on the naval base in Haifa.

It later claimed to have carried out an attack targeting an Israeli military base near Israel’s northern city of Safed.

The Israeli military said it identified several projectiles from Lebanese territory and that most were intercepted, except for one that fell in an open area.

The army also said it would “not tolerate any presence of representatives of the Iranian … regime in Lebanon” and gave them 24 hours to leave the country or face attacks.

Human Rights Watch said people who are not directly involved in hostilities cannot be targeted under international law.

“The suggestion that Israeli forces will target Iranian government officials who do not leave Lebanon is both deeply disturbing and an admission of an intent to commit a war crime,” the watchdog said in a statement.

Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Beirut, said the latest conflict between Israel and Hezbollah appeared to be escalating.

“There is no front line and no mediation or diplomatic effort to end it,” she said.