(Updated throughout)
by James Mackenzie, Maya Gebeily and Timour Azhari
The Israeli army said it launched “limited ground assaults” on Tuesday in southern Lebanon, near the border, against Hezbollah targets, which launched rockets into Tel Aviv in response, while the United States warned that Iran could carry out an attack against the Jewish state.
This escalation comes after more than two weeks of intensive bombings and attacks by Israel across Lebanon, in parallel with the IDF offensive in the Gaza Strip following the Palestinian Hamas attack almost of one year.
It threatens to set the region ablaze and push Iran and the United States to take more direct part in the conflict.
In Washington, a senior White House official said the United States had information that Iran was preparing to imminently launch a ballistic missile against Israel.
The United States actively supports Israel’s defensive preparations, the American representative added, warning that such an Iranian attack would have serious consequences for Iran.
Speaking later during a televised press briefing, the Israeli military spokesperson said the potential Iranian attack would be large-scale, urging citizens to take shelter if such a attack was about to occur.
Tehran launched some 300 missiles and drones towards the Jewish state last April, in response to a strike attributed to Israel against the Iranian consulate in the Syrian capital Damascus in which two senior commanders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards were killed .
It was the first direct attack ever carried out by Iran against Israel, where only minor damage was recorded, the missiles having been intercepted by Israeli defense systems with the support of the United States, the Great -Brittany and regional allies.
FEAR AND ANGER
The warning issued by Washington comes as Iran has promised to avenge the assassination of the emblematic leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, last Friday in a heavy Israeli strike on the outskirts of the Lebanese capital Beirut. A commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards was also killed in the strike.
The IDF said its ground assaults target Hezbollah structures along the border presented as a threat to Israel and assures that it is not a war against the Lebanese population.
More than 1,700 people, most of them in the last fortnight, have been killed in Lebanon since the start of border clashes between Hezbollah and Israel on October 8.
A million Lebanese have been displaced by the fighting.
The prospect of an Israeli invasion fuels fear and anger among the Lebanese population.
“Not just Hezbollah, but all Lebanese will fight this time,” said Abou Alaa, a resident of the southern Lebanese port city of Saida. “The whole country is determined to fight Israel for the massacres committed in Gaza and Lebanon,” he added.
Israel has already invaded and occupied part of southern Lebanon in the past.
The Israeli army said on Tuesday that it had called up four additional brigades of reservists for operational missions along the border with Lebanon.
HEZBOLLAH DENIES ISRAELI LAND INCURSION
At least 600 residents of the Christian village of Ain Ebel took refuge in a monastery in the village of Rmeich after receiving a warning from the Israeli army, residents told Reuters, adding that they were waiting for a military convoy to be escorted to Beirut.
An Israeli army spokesperson notified residents of more than twenty villages in southern Lebanon to immediately evacuate their homes, targeted by soldiers because they are, according to the IDF, used by Hezbollah.
In a statement to Reuters, a Hezbollah spokesperson denied any Israeli incursion into Lebanese territory, but said the group’s fighters were ready to confront Israeli soldiers if they entered Lebanon.
Hezbollah announced during the day that it had fired missiles against the Mossad headquarters and an Israeli military intelligence base on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, where warning sirens sounded.
Two people were injured by shrapnel, Israeli emergency services said.
Despite the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah and several Hezbollah commanders, the biggest setback inflicted on the Shiite movement in decades, Israel said it was prepared to carry out an invasion of Lebanon with the stated objective of allowing Israeli citizens having fled Hezbollah rocket fire to return home to the north of the Jewish state.
Israel carried out attacks on Tuesday against a skyscraper in Beirut’s Jnah neighborhood and a building on the southern outskirts of the Lebanese capital, two Lebanese security sources said, adding that the road leading to the city’s airport was briefly blocked. closed.
The Israeli army said it carried out a “precise strike”.
INTERNATIONAL CONCERN
A few hours earlier, the IDF announced in a statement that it had begun “limited and targeted ground assaults” against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
A representative of the Israeli security services said that the army launched ground incursions into southern Lebanon near the border overnight from Monday to Tuesday, without going any further. No clashes with Hezbollah fighters were reported, he added.
The Israeli army spokesperson declared during the day that the IDF had been carrying out assaults in southern Lebanon for months, uncovering Hezbollah tunnels, weapons “hides” under houses and a planned invasion prepared by the powerful Shiite movement.
Daniel Hagari added that Hezbollah’s plan was to enter Israel to carry out an attack similar to that of Hamas on October 7 in localities in the south of the Jewish state.
Hezbollah did not react to the comments of the Israeli army spokesperson.
The ground assaults launched by the IDF have exacerbated international concerns.
British Foreign Secretary David Lammy warned Israel against getting bogged down again in southern Lebanon, while Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said Israel must stop its incursions in order to avoid escalation in the region.
Several Western countries have urged their nationals to leave Lebanon.
(Reporting from James Mackenzie in Jerusalem, Maya Gebeily in Beirut, with offices in Beirut, Cairo and Washington)
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