Israel-Hezbollah latest: Israeli forces ‘conducting Lebanon raids’ ahead of possible full ground invasion
Defence minister tells troops near border that Israel ‘will use all the forces from the air, sea and land’ as an airstrike hits Beirut for the first time in 18 years
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Israeli special forces are said to be conducting small-group raids into southern Lebanon to gather intelligence on Hezbollah positions, with Israel’s defence minister hinting at a ground invasion.
Yoav Gallant was quoted by Iasraeli media as telling armoured corps troops near the Lebanon border: “To return the resident of the north safely to their homes we will activate all our capabilities - including you.”
"We will use all the forces from the air, sea and land," he added.
It comes as the deputy leader of Hezbollah vowed to be ready for an Israeli invasion.
In his first speech since Israel killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah over the weekend, the group’s deputy chief Naim Qassem said he was confident Hezbollah could push Israeliforces back like during the war in 2006.
“We are confident the Israeli enemy will not achieve its aims,” Qassem said. “We will confront any possibility and are ready if Israel decides to enter by land.”
Israel intensified its airstrikes on Monday, hitting central Beirut for the first time since 2006, while also killing Hamas’s leader in Lebanon in the southern city of Tyre.
In photos: Israeli air strike on central Beirut
Smoke rises from Beirut's southern suburbs after suspected strike, witness
Smoke is rising from Beirut’s southern suburbs after a suspected Israeli strike, witness have told Reuters.
Lebanese media have suggsted the smoke this is the result of the collapse of a building, rather than an airstrike.
Israeli strikes kill Hamas leader in Lebanon and three Palestinian leaders in Beirut
Palestinian militant group Hamas said an Israeli strike killed its leader in Lebanon on Monday, while another Palestinian militant group said three of its leaders were killed in a strike on Beirut, the first attack within the city limits.
Hamas said its leader in Lebanon, Fateh Sherif Abu el-Amin was killed, along with his wife, son, and daughter, in a strike that targeted their house in a Palestinian refugee camp in the southern city of Tyre in the early hours of Monday.
As Israel escalates hostilities against Iran’s allies in the region, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) said three of its leaders were killed in a strike that targeted Beirut’s Kola district.
The strike hit the upper floor of an apartment building, Reuters witnesses said.
Who was Hassan Nasrallah? Hezbollah leader of Lebanese militant group killed in Israeli strike
Hassan Nasrallah’s death is not only an enormous blow to Hezbollah but also to Iran, whose Revolutionary Guards founded the group in 1982.
Read more here:
Who was Hassan Nasrallah, shrewd strategist of Lebanese militant group Hezbollah?
Hassan Nasrallah’s death is not only an enormous blow to Hezbollah but also to Iran, whose Revolutionary Guards founded the group in 1982
ICYMI: Pope Francis suggests Israel's actions in Gaza and Lebanon are disproportionate and immoral
Pope Francis suggested Sunday that Israel‘s attacks in Gaza and Lebanon have been “immoral” and disproportionate, saying its military domination has gone beyond the rules of war.
Francis was asked en route home from Belgium about Israel’s targeted killing of one of Hezbollah’s founding members, Hassan Nasrallah. Friday’s strike in Beirut targeted an area greater than a city block and reduced several residential buildings to rubble, and at least six other deaths have been confirmed.
Francis didn’t mention Israel by name and said he was speaking in general terms. But he said that “the defense must always be proportionate to the attack.”
“When there is something disproportionate, there is a dominating tendency that goes beyond morality,” he said. “A country that does these things — and I’m talking about any country — in a superlative way, these are immoral actions.”
He said that even if war itself is immoral, there are rules that “indicate some morality.”
Read the full story here:
Pope Francis suggests Israel's actions in Gaza and Lebanon are disproportionate and immoral
Pope Francis is suggesting that Israel has used an “immoral” and disproportionate response in its attacks in Gaza and Lebanon
Israeli forces uncover Gaza Hamas tunnel near homes
The Israeli military says it has uncovered and dismantled a Hamas tunnel in central Gaza that was over a kilometre (0.6 miles) long.
It said the tunnel ran near homes, and that inside were several rooms and equipment used by militants for prolonged stays.
The military released footage showing the entrance to the tunnel, a long staircase leading down and what appeared to be an iron blast door.
Hamas is believed to have built hundreds of miles of tunnels across Gaza to evade Israeli airstrikes. The militants have also used the tunnels to hold hostages captured in the 7 October attack that triggered the war and to launch ambushes against Israeli forces.
Hamas says its leader in Lebanon was killed in Israeli strike
Hamas’s top commander in Lebanon, Fateh Sherif Abu el-Amin, has been killed in an Israeli strike, the militant group confirmed on Monday.
Some of el-Amin’s family members were also killed during the airstrike in the south of the country.
Lebanon ‘on verge of catastrophic humanitarian situation’
In just a few hours this weekend, the number of displaced people in Lebanon surged from 300,000 to nearly one million, according to Nasser Yassin, Lebanon’s head of emergency disaster management.
Despite opening hundreds of shelters, Mr Yassin warned that Lebanon is on the brink of a “catastrophic” humanitarian crisis. The country, already hosting 1.5 million Syrian and 250,000 Palestinian refugees, now has one million of its own people internally displaced due to ongoing Israeli strikes.
“We don’t want this to collapse fully, but we are on the verge of coming to a catastrophic humanitarian situation,” he told Sky News.
“We have been taking this on our shoulders, and now we have an additional burden of one million Lebanese people being displaced or affected by the current aggression.”
He criticised Israel’s tactic of announcing attacks on social media, calling it the “professionalisation of genocide”.
US kills dozens of al-Qaeda militants
The US military says it killed 37 militants linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group in two strikes in Syria this month.
US Central Command said it struck northwestern Syria on Tuesday, targeting a senior militant in charge of military operations for the al-Qaeda-linked Hurras al-Deen group and eight others.
It also said a large-scale airstrike on two weeks ago targeted an IS training camp in a remote location in central Syria. That attack killed 28 militants including “at least four Syrian leaders,” the US said.
There are 900 US forces in Syria, along with an undisclosed number of contractors, mostly trying to prevent any comeback by the extremist IS group, which swept through Iraq and Syria in 2014, taking control of large swaths of territory.
Israeli strike allegedly kills three leaders of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
A Palestinian militant group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), alleged that three of its leaders were killed in an Israeli airstrike on central Beirut’s Kola district.
The attack comes as Israeli airstrikes across Lebanon killed over 1,000 people in the last two weeks, according to Lebanon’s health ministry, with a fifth of the population now displaced.
The strikes, previously limited to southern Beirut, have now spread to the city’s centre for the first time since 2006.
The Israeli military has not commented on the latest incident.
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