Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Israel has launched a “limited” ground operation in southern Lebanon, its military said in the early hours of Tuesday morning, following a devastating escalation against Hizbollah during which it has dealt debilitating blows to the Iran-backed militant group.
In the past two weeks, Israel has assassinated Hizbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah, decimated its chain of command and launched an overwhelming bombing campaign that has killed more than 1,000 people in Lebanon, and displaced as many as 1mn.
Early on Tuesday, the Israeli military said it had begun “limited, localised, and targeted ground raids” against Hizbollah in the border area in southern Lebanon, adding the operations were being supported by artillery and the air force.
The move, which follows small-scale Israeli incursions into the Lebanese side of the border in recent days, is Israel’s first land operation against Hizbollah since 2006, when it fought a 34-day war with the militant group that ended in a stalemate.
It was accompanied by renewed strikes in Beirut’s southern suburbs, which came shortly after Israel’s military issued evacuation warnings to residents of several neighbourhoods.
Israeli forces and Hizbollah began trading fire last year, when Hizbollah launched rockets at the Jewish state in support of Hamas the day after the Palestinian militant group’s October 7 attack.
In the months since, the exchanges displaced 60,000 people on the Israeli side of the border, and more than 110,000 on the Lebanese side.
Speaking to troops earlier on Monday, Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant said Israel’s goal was to “return the residents of the north to their homes”. “We will use all the means at our disposal to achieve this goal,” he said.
In the first remarks by a Hizbollah official since Nasrallah’s death last week, deputy leader Naim Qassem said the group would continue to fight against Israel.
“If the Israelis want a ground incursion, the resistance forces are ready for that,” he said.
US officials earlier on Monday said the Israeli government had discussed the incursion, adding that Washington had sought to limit the scope and duration of the operations, fearing they could lead to an open-ended occupation of Lebanon’s border area.
Credit: Source link
