Ground troops of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have crossed the border into southern Lebanon, in what anonymous US officials described as “a limited ground incursion” aimed against Hezbollah.
The invasion comes after more than a week of air and missile strikes that killed over 1,000 people in Lebanon. Among the dead were several senior Hezbollah officials, including the group’s long-time leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
Unconfirmed reports quoted by several news agencies have indicated that Lebanese troops retreated approximately 5km away from the Israeli border late on Monday, in anticipation of the attack.
30 September 2024
The Syrian state media have reported explosions in the sky over Damascus, with air defense systems intercepting “hostile targets” in the vicinity of the Syrian capital.
On its English-language account on X, the IDF said it is “operating according to a methodical plan set out by the General Staff and the Northern Command” and that Israeli soldiers have been training and preparing for this operation for months.
The British government is chartering a flight to help its citizens leave Lebanon as several airlines have temporarily suspended flights to the region, according to the UK Foreign Office.
”If you are a British national in Lebanon, you should register your presence to receive the latest updates,” it said in a statement on X.
The French Navy has sent a warship to Lebanon’s shores to assist in the potential evacuation of French citizens, the country’s army general staff has announced. The helicopter carrier is expected to reach the area in five to six days.
The IDF has announced the beginning of a ground operation in southern Lebanon in the early hours of Tuesday.
The operation is aimed against the “targets and infrastructure of the terrorist organization Hezbollah, in a number of villages near the border, which pose an immediate and real threat to Israeli settlements on the northern border,” the IDF said in a statement on X.
The IDF added that the ground campaign has been “approved and is being carried out in accordance with the decision on the political level.”
“Operation Northern Arrows continues in accordance with the assessment of the situation” in Gaza and other areas, the Israeli army said, stressing that the operation’s goal is to make the border region safe for displaced Israeli citizens to return to their homes.
Israeli warplanes are flying over Beirut’s southern suburbs, the Lebanese National News Agency (NNA) reported following a series of IDF airstrikes on several neighborhoods in the area.
The NNA added that several residential buildings have been destroyed overnight.
The RIA Novosti news agency released a video of an Israeli airstrike near the international airport in Beirut.
The IDF announced earlier that it hit a Hezbollah “surface-to-air missile launcher storage facility” located some 1.5 km from the airport.
“We recognize that, at times, military pressure can enable diplomacy. That’s true. It is also true that military pressure can lead to miscalculation. It can lead to unintended consequences,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller has said.
An unnamed US official, meanwhile, told the Times of Israel that Washington “understands and accepts what Israel is trying to accomplish with a limited ground incursion into Lebanon” but is concerned that the IDF could be forced to expand the mission once it is set in motion.
A military base hosting US troops in Baghdad has reportedly come under attack according to Reuters. Two Iraqi military officials told the outlet that at least two Katyusha rockets had been fired at the compound but were intercepted by air defenses. It is unclear who had fired the rockets.
Israeli airstrikes have killed 95 and injured 172 people over the past 24 hours, the Lebanese Health Ministry said on Tuesday evening. The report did not break down the death toll between civilians and combatants.
Al Jazeera has reported that Israeli jets have bombed a suburb of Beirut where the IDF has alleged a Hezbollah presence.
The Israeli Security Cabinet approved the ground invasion of Lebanon at a meeting on Monday evening, but several members complained about the US leaking the plan to the media after Washington was given advance notice, the outlet Ynet has reported.
Israel’s planned invasion of Lebanon “grossly violates international law,” Belgium’s deputy prime minister, Petra De Sutter, posted on X. “This is not self-defense, but provoking all-out war,” she added, calling for the EU to respond with “maximum sanctions on Israel.”
Several towns along the Lebanon-Israel border have reported heavy IDF bombardment, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency. Marjayoun and Wazzani have been targeted by artillery, while Kawkaba, Rachaya Al Foukhar, Kfarkela and Khiam have been struck from the air.
Israel has already launched “small special forces operations” into southern Lebanon, ahead of a ground offensive, NBC News has reported, quoting an anonymous Israeli official. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has said the “next phase in the war against Hezbollah will begin soon.”
Meanwhile, the IDF has posted a warning for residents of the Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh to move at least 500m away from three buildings it described as “Hezbollah facilities,” warning that the Israeli military would soon “act forcefully” against them.
“For your safety and the safety of your family members, you must evacuate these buildings immediately,” tweeted Colonel Avichay Adraee, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman.
While neither the IDF nor Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said anything about the operation in Lebanon, Shas party leader Aryeh Deri posted a traditional Jewish war prayer on X.
The traditional prayer pleads with God to safeguard the troops operating “from the border of Lebanon to the desert of Egypt” and to vanquish their enemies and grant them victory.
UN peacekeepers in Lebanon (UNIFIL) remain in position but have been unable to carry out their mission, Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, told reporters.
“Given the intensity of the rockets going back and forth, they are not able to do patrolling,” Dujarric said, adding that “the intensity of fighting is preventing their movements.”
UNIFIL has been in Lebanon since 1978 and has approximately 10,000 ‘Blue Helmets’ in the country.
EU foreign foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has called an emergency video conference of the bloc’s foreign ministers while visiting Mexico.
“The sovereignty of both Israel and Lebanon has to be guaranteed,” Borrell told reporters afterward. “Any further military intervention would dramatically aggravate the situation and has to be avoided.”
Israel reportedly informed the US of the impending invasion earlier in the day. President Joe Biden told reporters at the White House that he was “more aware than you might know,” but that he wanted the IDF to stop.
“We should have a ceasefire now,” Biden said, before walking away.