Fighting broke out on Tuesday in southern Lebanon, where the Israeli army launched a ground offensive against Hezbollah, after a week of intense bombings against the Islamist movement, supported by Iran, which left hundreds of people dead. dead.
After the devastating blow to the Shiite armed group with the death of its leader Hassan Nasrallah, killed Friday in an Israeli strike near Beirut, Israeli leaders warned that the war was not over against Hezbollah.
The movement, which for a year has increased rocket fire towards northern Israel in support of Palestinian Hamas, at war against the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip, assured Monday that it was “ready” to face an offensive land in southern Lebanon.
The Israeli army announced that it had launched “limited, localized and targeted” ground operations on Monday evening, supported by aviation and artillery, against Hezbollah “terrorist targets and infrastructure”.
“These targets are located in villages near the border and pose an immediate threat to Israeli communities in northern Israel,” she said.
Air strikes simultaneously targeted the southern suburbs of Beirut, a stronghold of Hezbollah, the surroundings of Damascus in Syria as well as the Gaza Strip, where Israel has been leading an offensive since October 7, 2023 in retaliation for the movement’s unprecedented attack. Palestinian Islamist Hamas.
Avoid the south
The Israeli army reported on Tuesday “violent fighting” in southern Lebanon and ordered the Lebanese not to travel to the south of the country “in vehicles” for their “own security”.
Hezbollah for its part claimed Tuesday to have targeted Israeli soldiers with artillery fire and rockets in Metula and Avivim, in northern Israel, after the start of this operation.
The army said Tuesday that soldiers from the 98e division, engaged until then in the Gaza Strip, were engaged in operations in southern Lebanon.
The Israeli army also announced that it had carried out “precision strikes on several Hezbollah weapons manufacturing sites and other infrastructure” on Monday in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
According to a Lebanese security official, Israel launched at least six strikes on south Beirut overnight after the Israeli army ordered residents to evacuate.
An official at a Palestinian camp in Saida, southern Lebanon, told AFP that an Israeli strike there had targeted Mounir Maqdah, whom Israel accuses of leading the Lebanese branch of the armed wing of the Palestinian movement Fatah. He did not specify whether Mounir Maqdah had been hit.
According to Syrian state media, Israeli strikes also targeted the Damascus region overnight, killing three civilians.
Emergency help
After a year of exchanges of fire on the border, Israel has intensified its military operations on the northern front since mid-September, in order to weaken Hezbollah and allow the return of tens of thousands of inhabitants of the border regions with the Lebanon, displaced by incessant rocket fire.
In Lebanon, more than a thousand people have been killed, according to the Ministry of Health, since the explosions of Hezbollah transmission devices on September 16 and 17, attributed to Israel, and the start of massive bombings which targeted Hezbollah strongholds. Hezbollah from September 23.
Lebanon is facing “one of the most dangerous phases in its history,” its Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, said on Tuesday. He called on the United Nations to provide emergency aid for the displaced, whose number he said had reached one million after the bombings of recent days.
The UN has launched an appeal for more than $400 million to help the displaced.
“Dismantle Hezbollah’s infrastructure”
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Tuesday he agreed with Israel on the “need to dismantle Hezbollah’s attack infrastructure” to ensure it “cannot carry out attacks like those of October 7 against the communities of northern Israel.
However, he pleaded for a “diplomatic resolution” to ensure the safety of civilians “on both sides of the border”.
Calls for de-escalation increased on Monday in the face of the risk of an extension of the war, while Israel promised to fight its “enemies” and “eliminate” them wherever they are.
There is “no place in the Middle East that Israel cannot reach,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned.
The American site Axios, however, indicated that, according to Israeli officials speaking on condition of anonymity, the ground operation was “not aimed at occupying southern Lebanon”, from where Israel was withdrawn in 2000 after 22 years of occupation.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has voiced his opposition to any Israeli “ground invasion” of Lebanon while President Joe Biden suggested on Monday that he was opposed to ground operations, calling for a cease-fire. fire.
Iran has said it will not “deploy” fighters to Lebanon and Gaza to confront Israel. But the Defense Secretary again warned Tehran overnight against a possible “direct military attack targeting Israel”.
The Israeli offensive continues meanwhile in the Gaza Strip, even if the strikes have decreased in intensity in recent days.
On Tuesday, bombings killed 12 people in the Nusseirat refugee camp in central Palestinian territory. Seven other people died in strikes on a school housing displaced people near the northern city of Gaza.