Israel “currently” conducts “limited” ground operations in Lebanon

The United States announced on Monday “limited” land operations by Israel against Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon, where the government denounced in the evening several strikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut, stronghold of the armed Islamist movement Hezbollah, against a backdrop of international calls for de-escalation.

The death toll from Monday’s Israeli strikes in Lebanon is 95 dead across the country, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health.

Lebanese Hezbollah, for its part, declared that it had “targeted” Israeli soldiers “on the move” near the Lebanese border on the night of Monday to Tuesday, a source close to the Shiite movement specifying that the soldiers were “on the border “. According to Hezbollah, the “enemy soldiers” were “in orchards opposite Adaisseh and Kfar Kila.”

The Lebanese army has repositioned its troops in the south of the country bordering northern Israel, according to a military official. The Israeli army declared three border towns “closed military zones”.

Furthermore, the southern suburbs of Beirut were the target of at least six Israeli strikes on Monday evening, according to Lebanese security sources. AFP journalists heard explosions there. Earlier the Israeli army had called on residents there to evacuate their buildings for their safety.

After the devastating blow inflicted on Hezbollah with the assassination of its leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday in an Israeli strike near Beirut, Israeli leaders warned that the battle was not yet over against the pro-Iranian movement, Israel’s enemy. .

The Israeli army is “currently” conducting “limited” ground operations targeting Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, near the border, said State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller. “They have informed us that they are currently carrying out what they say are limited operations targeting Hezbollah infrastructure,” he said.

In Israel, the army announced the establishment of a “closed military zone” on the Lebanese border around the towns of Metula, Misgav Am and Kfar Giladi, where entry is “prohibited”.

Earlier, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warned, in front of soldiers positioned in the north of the country, that “the elimination of Nasrallah is an important step, but it is not the last” against Hezbollah. “We will use all the capabilities at our disposal (…) We will use all necessary means, your forces, other forces from the air, from the sea and on land,” he warned.

Despite the blows inflicted by Israel which killed many Hezbollah leaders, the movement’s number two, Naïm Qassem, affirmed: “Israel has not been able to undermine our military capabilities”. “We are ready if the Israelis decide to enter the ground. Our resistance forces are ready for a ground confrontation,” he said, affirming that his party would continue its fight against Israel “in support of Gaza”, in the grip of a war triggered by an unprecedented attack by Palestinian Hamas. on October 7, 2023 against Israel.

The death of Hassan Nasrallah, who was considered the most powerful man in Lebanon, constitutes a major victory for Israel against Iran, Israel’s enemy, and its allies including Hamas.

Israel has promised to fight its “enemies” and “eliminate” them wherever they are found. There is “no place in the Middle East that Israel cannot reach,” warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Iran said it would not “deploy” fighters to Lebanon and Gaza to confront Israel, saying “the governments of Lebanon and Palestine have the capacity and power to confront the regime’s aggression Zionist”.

Due to the “intensity of the fighting,” the UN announced that peacekeepers deployed in southern Lebanon could no longer patrol. And faced with fears of a conflagration, UN boss Antonio Guterres expressed his opposition to any Israeli “land invasion” of Lebanon.

In Washington, President Joe Biden suggested he was opposed to Israeli ground operations, calling for a ceasefire.

Present in Beirut, the head of French diplomacy, Jean-Noël Barrot, called on Israel to “refrain from any land incursion” as well as for a cease-fire. Any new Israeli military intervention in Lebanon “must be avoided,” said the head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell.

The day after the start of the war in Gaza, Hezbollah opened a front against Israel in support of Hamas, its ally, and daily fire was exchanged between the two camps.

Since mid-September, Israel has focused its military operations on the northern front, with the objective of putting an end to Hezbollah’s rocket fire and allowing the return of tens of thousands of residents displaced by this fire.

On Monday, Israeli strikes in Lebanon left at least 95 dead, including three members of a Palestinian group, the leader of Hamas in Lebanon and a Lebanese soldier, according to the daily report published Monday evening by the Lebanese Ministry of Health. Hezbollah, for its part, fired rockets towards northern Israel.

For the first time since October 8, a strike targeted the center of Beirut, destroying a floor of a building. According to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), three of its members were killed there. The Israeli army said it had killed two commanders of this organization described as terrorist by Israel and the European Union.

Since the explosions of Hezbollah’s transmission systems in Lebanon on September 17, blamed on Israel, and the intensification of Israeli strikes that followed, the death toll has risen to more than 1,000 in Lebanon, according to the Ministry of Health.

On the Gaza front, the Israeli army continues its offensive in the Palestinian territory which has been devastated and besieged for almost a year. However, the strikes have decreased in intensity in recent days.