The Israeli army entered Lebanon. According to Tel Aviv, it launched “a limited, localized and selective ground operation” against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, while continuing to bombard areas near the border and carrying out airstrikes on the capital, Beirut. “The Israeli army [Fuerzas de Defensa de Israel] “We launched limited, localized and selective ground raids, based on precise intelligence, against Hezbollah terrorist targets and infrastructure in southern Lebanon,” the army said in a statement Tuesday morning.
“These targets are located in villages close to the border and pose an immediate threat to Israeli communities in northern Israel,” he continued, adding: “Operation Northern Arrows will continue as as the situation evolves and parallels the fighting in Gaza. and other parameters [Palestina, Siria, Yemen]”.
Lebanese media reported that an attack targeted a building in the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp near the southern city of Sidon on Tuesday, with Al Jazeera reporting several casualties.
The Israeli government has not yet commented on this attack. Israeli media reports that Mounir Maqdah, alleged commander of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and suspected target of the attack, was injured.
If confirmed, it would be the first attack on the largest of Lebanon’s many Palestinian settlements since Israel began the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza almost a year ago.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli attack in Beirut on Friday, dealing a blow to the group and raising fears that Israel is preparing a ground offensive in Lebanon and that the conflict could spread across the Middle East. -East.
Israeli attacks on Yemen and Syria
After two weeks of attacks that began with the deadly explosion of pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to members of Hezbollah, which left dozens dead and thousands injured, Israel has since continued to strike Beirut and has also launched attacks on Yemen and Syria. .
Syrian state media reported Tuesday that three civilians were killed in Israeli strikes on the capital, Damascus. State television announced the death of one of its presenters. although he is not one of the three mentioned by the media.
Tuesday’s statement from the IDF comes after Israeli media reported that the cabinet had approved the next phase of its operation in Lebanon following a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Hours earlier, the United States and other sources also said Israeli forces appeared to have launched what they called “limited ground operations” in southern Lebanon.
“That’s what we’re told they’re currently conducting, which is limited operations targeting Hezbollah infrastructure near the border,” US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters. .
On Tuesday morning, the Lebanese Ministry of Health reported that at least 95 people were killed and 172 injured in Israeli attacks on areas of southern Lebanon, the eastern Bekaa Valley and Beirut over the past few years. 24 hours.
Hezbollah deputy leader Naim Qasem said Monday in a first public speech since Nasrallah’s death that “resistance forces are ready for a clash on the ground.” “We know the battle can be long. We will win as we won during the liberation of 2006,” he said, referring to that year’s war.
On Monday evening and Tuesday morning, intense shelling took place against Lebanon along the border in the Kiryat Shmona region – northern Israel – in an area where Israeli armor and infantry advanced towards Lebanon for the 2006 war. Airstrikes continued in Beirut and at least 10. points in the south of the country, according to the official Lebanese news agency.
The Israeli army has declared the areas of Metula, Misgav Am and Kfar Giladi in northern Israel a closed military zone.
US President Joe Biden said he was aware of Israel’s plans to launch an operation against Lebanon, while urging against doing so. “I’m more aware of what you may know and I agree that you stop,” he told reporters at the White House when asked if he agreed with Israeli plans for cross-border incursion: “We should stop at the light now.
The towns of Marjayoun, Wazzani and Khiam – located in a series of interlocking valleys dominated by steep slopes – were bombed on Monday evening.
A Marjayoun resident said a local official received a phone call ordering residents to evacuate, but the shelling began before people could leave the town. “They called the mukhtar of Marjayoun and told us that we had to evacuate. But we can’t move, the roads are being bombed and hit by airstrikes,” the resident said.
An hour later, the road leading to Marjayoun was hit by an Israeli airstrike and rendered useless, the Lebanese National News Agency reported.
The region, with its scattered villages and scrubland hiding bunkers and combat tunnels, has long been a base for Hezbollah fighters and was bitterly contested during the last war between Israel and Hezbollah 18 years ago. years.
Hezbollah said in a statement it attacked a group of Israeli soldiers who were in an “orchard” near the Lebanese border towns of Odaisseh and Kafr Kila, “resulting in confirmed casualties.” Kafr Kila is one of the towns bordering the area that Israel declared a closed military zone on Monday.
Meanwhile, the Lebanese army said it was “repositioning and regrouping its forces” amid reports of a five-kilometre withdrawal from the country’s southern border. The Lebanese army has historically stayed away from major conflicts with Israel, and during the last year of hostilities it has not fired on the Israeli army.
Reports emerged Tuesday of U.S. concern over Israel’s exit strategy following the ground operations. Jacob Magid, head of the American office of Israel Times, reported the White House’s concern that “the IDF will become bogged down in the country or be drawn into the expansion of the mission once it gets underway.”
Magid reports that a U.S. official pointed to the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, which was announced as a “limited incursion, but which turned into an 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon.”
Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli diplomat and critic of Benjamin Netanyahu, warned that a ground incursion could mark a new departure from previous attacks in 1982 – which helped spark the creation of Hezbollah and led to an Israeli occupation of the south for 15 years old. of Lebanon – and 2006.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry reported Sunday that more than 1,000 Lebanese had been killed and 6,000 injured in the past two weeks, without specifying how many were civilians. The government said a million people – a fifth of the population – have fled their homes.
