Israeli military had begun limited, localized and targeted raids against Hezbollah targets in the border area of southern Lebanon, it said in a statement early on Tuesday.
The targets, it said, pose an “immediate threat to Israeli communities in northern Israel.” The military said the operation had been planned in recent months and was launched after approval by political leaders.
Lebanese troops pulled back from the border with Israel late on Monday as a ground invasion by Israel looked imminent, just days after Israel killed the head of Lebanese armed group Hezbollah in an escalation of regional tensions.
At least two Israeli strikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs, a security source said, with a Reuters reporter seeing a flash of light and hearing a loud blast about an hour after the Israeli military had warned residents to evacuate areas near buildings it said contained Hezbollah infrastructure south of the Lebanese capital.
U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Monday Israel informed the U.S. about the raids, which he said were described as “limited operations.”
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told local council heads in northern Israel that the next phase of the war along Lebanon’s southern border would begin soon, and would support the aim of bringing home Israelis who have fled Hezbollah rockets during nearly a year of border warfare.
He also told troops: “We will use all the means that may be required – your forces, other forces, from the air, from the sea, and on land. Good luck.”
Lebanese troops pulled back from positions along Lebanon’s southern border with Israel to about five kilometers (3 miles) north of the border, a Lebanese security source told Reuters.
A Lebanese army spokesperson did not confirm or deny the movement.
Lebanon’s army has historically stayed on the sidelines of major conflicts with Israel, and in the last year of hostilities has not fired on the Israeli military.
Amal Al-Hourani, mayor of Jdeidet Marjayoun, a Christian-majority Lebanese village less than 10 km from the border, told Reuters that two locals had received calls apparently from the Israeli army telling them to evacuate the area as soon as possible.
The Israeli military declared the areas around the communities of Metula, Misgav Am, and Kfar Giladi in northern Israel near the border with Lebanon as a closed military zone and said entry to the areas was prohibited.
As speculation grew that the ground operation was imminent, an Israeli military spokesperson issued a statement on social media platform X, telling Israelis not to “spread irresponsible rumors” about troop movements and activities.
Israel last week rejected a proposal by the U.S. and France calling for a 21-day ceasefire to give time for a diplomatic settlement that would allow displaced civilians on both sides to return home.
U.S. President Joe Biden, who has so far had little success urging Israel to rein in its assaults on Hezbollah or on the Hamas militia in Gaza, called for a ceasefire.
“I’m more worried than you might know and I’m comfortable with them stopping,” Biden told reporters when asked if he was comfortable with Israeli plans for a cross-border incursion. “We should have a ceasefire now.”
U.S. sends additional troops
The U.S. is sending an additional “few thousand” troops to the Middle East to bolster security and to be prepared to defend Israel if necessary, the Pentagon said Monday.
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The increased presence will come from multiple fighter jet squadrons, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters.
The additional personnel includes squadrons of F-15E Strike Eagle, F-16, A-10 and F-22 fighter jets and the personnel needed to support them. The jets were supposed to rotate in and replace the squadrons already there. Instead both the existing and new squadrons will remain in place to double the airpower on hand.
The jets are not there to assist in an evacuation, Singh said, “they are there for the protection of U.S. forces.”
Hezbollah says it is ready to face ground incursion
Friday’s assassination of Hassan Nasrallah – the most powerful leader in Tehran’s “Axis of Resistance” against Israeli and U.S. interests in the Middle East – was one of the heaviest blows in decades to both Hezbollah and Iran, and followed two weeks of intensive airstrikes.
Hezbollah’s deputy leader Naim Qassem, in a first public speech since Nasrallah’s death, said that “the resistance forces are ready for a ground engagement.”
Israeli airstrikes have eliminated several Hezbollah commanders but also killed about 1,000 civilians and forced one million to flee their homes, according to the Lebanese government.
At least 95 people were killed and 172 wounded in Israeli strikes on Lebanon’s southern regions, the eastern Bekaa Valley, and Beirut in the past 24 hours, Lebanon’s health ministry said early on Tuesday.
Rescuers stood on a flattened building. “We are rescuing these people, pulling out the living, the torn apart, and the martyrs,” said one, Mazin al-Khatib.
Nasrallah’s killing, along with the assassinations and systematic attacks on the group’s communications devices, constitute the biggest blow to the Shi’ite movement since Iran created it in 1982 to fight Israel.
Nasrallah built Hezbollah into Lebanon’s most powerful military and political force, with a wide reach across the Middle East.
Now it must replace a charismatic, towering leader who the West branded a terrorist mastermind but who to millions of supporters was a hero who stood up to Israel.
Qassem said it would “choose a secretary-general for the party at the earliest opportunity.”
He said Hezbollah had continued to fire rockets as deep as 150 km (93 miles) into Israeli territory.
“We know that the battle may be long,” he said. “We will win as we won in the liberation of 2006,” he added, referring to the last big conflict between the two foes.
Netanyahu to Iran: ‘Nowhere in the Middle East Israel cannot reach’
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Hezbollah’s main backer, Iran, that “there is nowhere we will not go to protect our people and protect our country.”
In a three-minute video clip in English that he addressed to the Iranian people, he accused their government of plunging the Middle East “deeper into war” at the expense of its own people, whom it was bringing “closer to the abyss.”
“There is nowhere in the Middle East Israel cannot reach,” Netanyahu said.
Referring to Hezbollah’s Nasrallah, Netanyahu said that “puppets” of the Iranian “regime” were being eliminated every day.
Assassinations of Palestinian military leaders
Israel has also assassinated leaders of the Iranian-backed Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza war, one of them – its political leader Ismail Haniyeh – as he was visiting the Iranian capital in July.
Hours before Qassem spoke, Hamas said an Israeli airstrike had killed its leader in Lebanon, Fateh Sherif Abu el-Amin, along with his wife, son and daughter in the city of Tyre.
Abu el-Amin had worked for the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA before being suspended in March. UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini told reporters it had not known of his purported Hamas role.
Another faction, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, said three of its leaders had died in a strike in Beirut’s Kola district, the first Israeli attack so close to the city center.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said Tehran would not let any of Israel’s “criminal acts” go unanswered, referring to the killings of Nasrallah and an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps deputy commander who died in the same strikes.
Airstrikes drive thousands from homes in Lebanon
Hundreds of thousands of people have been driven from their homes by the strikes and ensuing violence.
The Lebanese government estimates around 250,000 are in shelters, with three to four times as many staying with friends or relatives, or camping out on the streets.
Families sleep on Beirut’s corniche after fleeing the Israeli airstrikes in Beirut’s southern suburb, Lebanon, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar).
Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant group and political party backed by Iran, Israel’s chief regional rival, rose to regional prominence after fighting a devastating monthlong war with Israel in 2006 that ended in a draw.
Kaouk was a veteran member of Hezbollah going back to the 1980s and served as Hezbollah’s military commander in southern Lebanon during the 2006 war with Israel. The United States announced sanctions against him in 2020.
Hezbollah began firing rockets, missiles and drones into northern Israel after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack out of Gaza triggered the conflict there. Hezbollah and Hamas are allies that consider themselves part of an Iran-backed “Axis of Resistance” against Israel.
The conflict has steadily ratcheted up to the brink of all-out war, raising fears of a region-wide conflagration.
Israel says it is determined to return some 60,000 of its citizens to communities in the north that were evacuated nearly a year ago. Hezbollah has said it will only halt its rocket fire if there is a cease-fire in Gaza, which has proven elusive despite months of indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas led by the United States, Qatar and Egypt.
With additional files from the Associated Press