UNIFIL and Hezbollah deny Israeli incursion on Lebanese soil

Hezbollah denied on Tuesday that an Israeli ground incursion was underway in southern Lebanon, as Israel claims, and assured that no “direct clash” had pitted its fighters against the Israeli army.

“All Zionist claims that the occupying forces have entered Lebanon are false,” the head of Hezbollah’s information department told Al-Jazeera. “There was no direct confrontation on the ground” with Israeli troops, he added.

Same statement from UNIFIL peacekeepers, who maintain that no Israeli incursion has been detected “for the moment” (Tuesday morning) in southern Lebanon, where the Israeli army announced a ground offensive against the Hezbollah, a spokesperson for the UN peacekeepers told AFP.

“There is no land incursion at the moment,” said Andrea Tenenti, spokesperson for the United Nations Interim Force (UNIFIL) deployed along the Blue Line which marks the border between Israel and Lebanon. .

For his part, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed his opposition to any Israeli “ground invasion” of Lebanon while President Joe Biden suggested on Monday that he was opposed to ground operations, calling to a ceasefire.

Furthermore, Lebanese Hezbollah announced on Tuesday that it had fired salvos of rockets towards the main Israeli military intelligence base, Glilot, near Tel Aviv.

In a statement, the pro-Iranian formation, whose leader was killed Friday in an Israeli strike, said it had “launched salvos of Fadi 4 type rockets at the Glilot base.” This military intelligence base would also house, according to Israeli media, the headquarters of Mossad, Israeli foreign intelligence.

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 Lebanese channel Al-Mayadeen denied Israeli media reports on land advances near the border, specifying that the Lebanese army had repositioned itself in the southern Litani area.

During the last hours, the Israeli army received specific strikes from the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon, which targeted its movements on the Lebanese-Palestinian border, underlines the same source, which specifies that the Mujahideen of the Islamic Resistance targeted , Monday and Tuesday at midnight, a force of Israeli occupation soldiers at the gate of the Shtula settlement with artillery shells.

The resistance announced a specific operation in which it targeted the movements of Israeli occupation soldiers in the orchards in front of the towns of Al-Adisa and Kafr Kila with appropriate weapons, causing casualties among Israelis.

On the other hand, the Al-Mayadeen channel, referring to its correspondents in occupied Palestine, reported that sirens sounded at “Misgav Am” in occupied Galilee, confirming Hezbollah’s firing on the aforementioned targets.

The Israeli website Walla also confirmed that rockets had been fired towards Misgav Am, which was declared a closed military zone.

The Israeli newspaper “Maariv” reported that 35 missiles were fired from Lebanon towards the north during the night from Monday to Tuesday.

Israeli media reported that 10 missiles were being monitored from southern Lebanon towards Meron.