Israel says it's targeting Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon ground raids

The operation follows intense airstrikes that have devastated the group's leadership, including assassinating its chief Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut last week.

The Israeli military said the operations in Lebanon began on Monday night and involved the elite 98th division, which was deployed to the northern front two weeks ago from Gaza where they had been fighting against Hamas for months.

It said its air force and artillery supported ground troops engaged in "limited, localised, and targeted ground raids" against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon villages that posed "an immediate threat to Israeli communities in northern Israel".

Israel's ground raids will target Hezbollah strongholds along the border that threaten Israel, not a war against the Lebanese people, Israel's military said on Tuesday.

"Hezbollah turned Lebanese villages next to Israeli villages into military bases ready for an attack on Israel," military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said. Residents in southern Lebanon fled on Monday and Tuesday as Israeli strikes drew nearer, local sources told Reuters.

Lebanon is facing one of the most dangerous stages in its history, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said on Tuesday during a meeting with UN organisations and ambassadors of donor countries, in which they made a joint appeal for more than $400 million in aid to cope with surging hostilities.

Two Lebanese security sources told Reuters that Israeli units had crossed into Lebanon overnight for reconnaissance and probing operations. Lebanese troops also pulled back from positions along the border, the source added.

Hezbollah said on Tuesday it had launched rocket and artillery attacks against Israeli troops at positions within Israel, and made no mention of Israeli forces within Lebanon.

Israel's ambulance service said one person had been wounded by shrapnel from the barrage of missiles fired into central Israel.

The Israeli military issued a warning to citizens not to move in their vehicles from the area north of the Litani river in Lebanon to its south. It has previously said it wants to clear Hezbollah from south of the river.

Despite its biggest successes against Hezbollah in decades, Israel has indicated it is primed for a full-fledged invasion of Lebanon with the stated aim of enabling thousands of its citizens who fled Hezbollah rockets to safely return to their communities near the northern border.

Israel's strikes have displaced one million Lebanese from their homes and killed more than 1,100 people, Lebanese authorities have said. A looming ground offensive has sparked fear and anger in Lebanon.

"Not just Hezbollah, all of Lebanon will fight this time. All of Lebanon is determined to fight Israel for the massacres it committed in Gaza and Lebanon," said Abu Alaa, a resident of the southern port city of Sidon.

LEBANESE ARMY PULLS BACK

Iran's allies -- from Hezbollah to Yemen's Houthis to armed groups in Iraq -- have weighed in with attacks in the region in support of Hamas in the Gaza war, raising fears the conflict will engulf the Middle East and suck in the United States and Tehran.

Yemen's Houthi movement targeted Israeli military posts in Tel Aviv and Eilat with drones on Tuesday, the group's military spokesperson Yahya Saree said in a televised speech.

Local residents in the Lebanese border town of Aita al-Shaab reported heavy shelling and the sound of helicopters and drones overhead. Flares were repeatedly launched over the Lebanese border town of Rmeish, lighting up the night sky.

An Israeli strike in Lebanon early on Tuesday targeted Mounir Maqdah, commander of the Lebanese branch of the Palestinian Fatah movement's military wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, according to two Palestinian security officials.

His fate was unknown.

The strike hit a building in the crowded Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp near the southern city of Sidon, the sources said. It marked the first strike on Lebanon's largest Palestinian camp since cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel broke out nearly a year ago.

Israel has not commented on the strike.

In Syria, three civilians were killed and nine others injured in an Israeli airstrike on the capital Damascus, Syrian state media said on Tuesday citing a military source. Israel's military said it does not comment on foreign media reports.

Israel has been carrying out strikes against Iran-linked targets in Syria for years but has ramped up raids since the Palestinian group Hamas attacked Israel's southern territory on Oct. 7, 2023.

Hamas killed 1,200 people and took about 250 hostage in its assault on Israel, according to Israeli tallies. Israel in response launched a massive assault on Hamas in Gaza, killing more than 41,300 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry.

STRIKES ON BEIRUT

Israel's operations in Lebanon follow its deadly detonation of booby-trapped Hezbollah pagers, two weeks of airstrikes, and its killing on Friday of Nasrallah.

Overnight, a series of strikes hit Beirut's southern suburbs after the Israeli military warned residents to evacuate areas near buildings it said contained Hezbollah infrastructure south of the capital.

In the past 24 hours, at least 95 people had been killed and 172 wounded in Israeli strikes on Lebanon's southern regions, the eastern Bekaa Valley, and Beirut, Lebanon's health ministry said early on Tuesday.