BEIRUT: The Israeli army early on Tuesday launched what it described as a limited ground operation in southern Lebanon after ordering residents in more than 25 Lebanese border towns to evacuate and move north of the Awali River.

Families from the towns of Rmeich and Ain Ebel appealed to the Lebanese Army and Lebanese Red Cross for help moving to a secure location after they were left stranded by air raids on nearby access roads.

An Israeli military spokesman said the ground incursion will be limited, and is aimed at “dismantling and demolishing Hezbollah’s infrastructure.”

Israeli media reported that Israeli troops destroyed 30 tons of antitank mines and 450 RPG rockets after launching the operation on Tuesday.

The UN peacekeeping force UNIFIL said that the Israeli army informed them of its intention to conduct limited ground incursions into Lebanon.

However, UNIFIL said that “any crossing into Lebanon constitutes a violation of Lebanese sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as a breach of Resolution 1701.”

It urged “all parties to refrain from such escalatory actions,” and said that “the cost of continuing along the current path of action is exceedingly high.”

The evacuation order in the border area revived memories for the Lebanese people of similar displacements when Israel occupied the region in the 1970s, a situation that lasted until 2000, followed by further displacement during the 2006 war.

The Israeli army announced in the early hours of Tuesday that “the 98th Division has commenced targeted and specific activities in the southern region of Lebanon.” It also released footage of the division’s preparations.

Commando and paratrooper units, as well as armored forces from the 7th Brigade, have been preparing for weeks to carry out the ground operation, the army said.

Israeli media said that army operations destroyed a large number of Hezbollah tunnels.

“What we feared has happened,” said Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, the UN special coordinator for Lebanon. “With strikes across Lebanon, including in the heart of Beirut, and incursions across the Blue Line, violence is escalating to dangerous levels.”

Plasschaert warned: “Every rocket fired, every bomb dropped, every ground raid carried out, takes the parties further away from the goal of resolution 1701 and further away from creating the conditions necessary for the safe return of civilians on both sides of the Blue Line.

“The ongoing cycle of violence will not achieve what either party wants. There is still a glimmer of hope for the success of diplomatic efforts, but the question is: Will this opportunity be seized or will it be squandered?“

Hezbollah continued its military operations against Israeli forces along the southern border.

The Israeli incursion was preceded by Israeli airstrikes in southern regions, extending through the southern suburbs of Beirut, and reaching the farthest areas of the Bekaa Valley.

Numerous residential buildings were completely flattened or partially destroyed.

Hezbollah responded to the Israeli attacks by announcing “rocket barrages of the ‘Fadi 4’ type targeting the Glilot base associated with Military Intelligence Unit 8200 and the Mossad headquarters located in the suburbs of Tel Aviv.”

Hezbollah targeted Israeli soldiers near the Rosh Pina settelement, as well as Israeli forces in the Dovev outpost.

Sirens sounded in Yiftah, Malkia, Ramot Naftali, Dishon in the Galilee and Metula in the Galilee Panhandle.

Israeli media outlets said that two people were injured in a missile strike in northeast Tel Aviv.

An Israeli strike on a house in the southern village of Daoudiyeh is believed to have killed 10 members of the Diab family.

Israeli fighter jets carried out eight raids on Laylaki, Mreijeh, Haret Hreik and Burj Al-Barajneh in Beirut’s southern suburbs, following warnings to residents to evacuate the areas.

An Israeli raid also struck the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain Al-Helweh – the biggest refugee camp in Lebanon – targeting Mounir Al-Makdah, leader of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of the Fatah Movement.

However, Al-Makdah escaped the assassination attempt, while his son, wife, and four other people were killed.

Last August, Israel targeted Khalil Al-Makdah, the leader’s brother, outside the camp with a drone.

A raid targeting Bekaa hit an aid station in Mashghara, killing eight people.

Meanwhile, the Lebanese government and NGOs are struggling to cope with the influx of displaced people into Beirut, Chouf, Tripoli, Akkar, and other areas of northern Lebanon.

Rain has also made it difficult for those sleeping in the street.

A number of displaced people attempted to storm and take shelter in several private properties in Beirut, including Le Bristol Hotel in Ras Beirut, another hotel in Ain Al-Mraiseh, and a building owned by a Kuwaiti national in the same area.

Prime Minister Najib Mikati met UN organizations and ambassadors of donor countries.

He also launched “a flash appeal to mobilize additional support to strengthen the continued efforts of the government in providing essential assistance to displaced civilians.”

Parliament speaker Nabih Berri called on the UN to establish an air bridge to deliver relief supplies and break the air blockade imposed by Israel on Lebanon.

JERUSALEM/BEIRUT: Iran fired a salvo of ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday in retaliation for Israel’s campaign against Tehran’s Hezbollah allies in Lebanon.
Alarms sounded across Israel and explosions could be heard in Jerusalem and the Jordan River valley after Israelis piled into bomb shelters. Reporters on state television lay flat on the ground during live broadcasts.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said Iran had launched tens of missiles at Israel, and that if Israel retaliated Tehran’s response would be “more crushing and ruinous.”
A senior Iranian official later told Reuters that the order to launch missiles at Israel was made by the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Khamenei remains in a secure location, the senior official added.
The Israeli army said Israel’s airspace was closed following the Iranian attack.
Reuters journalists saw missiles intercepted in the airspace of neighboring Jordan. Israeli army radio said nearly 200 missiles had been launched into Israel from Iran.
Earlier, the military had announced that any ballistic missile strike from Iran was expected to be widespread and told the public to shelter in safe rooms in the event of an attack.
Iran has vowed to retaliate following attacks that killed the top leadership of its Hezbollah allies in Lebanon.
The firing of missiles came after Israel said its troops had launched ground raids into Lebanon, though it described the forays as limited. The Israeli campaign in Lebanon is the biggest escalation of regional warfare since fighting erupted in Gaza a year ago.
In Washington, US President Joe Biden said the United States was prepared to help Israel defend itself from Iranian missile attacks.
“We discussed how the United States is prepared to help Israel defend against these attacks, and protect American personnel in the region,” Biden said on X about a meeting held with Vice President Kamala Harris and the White House national security team earlier in the day.
The Iranian missile launches came after Israeli ground troops launched raids into Lebanon and its warplanes bombed from the skies.
RAPID ESCALATION
Though so far characterised by Israel as limited, the first ground campaign into Lebanon for 18 years would pit Israeli soldiers against Hezbollah, Iran’s best-armed proxy force in the Middle East.
It marks the biggest escalation of regional warfare since fighting erupted in Gaza a year ago, and follows weeks of intense airstrikes that have decapitated Hezbollah by killing most of its top leaders. More than a thousand Lebanese have been killed and a million have fled their homes.
Iran had vowed to retaliate against Israel, raising fears that war could spill across borders throughout the region, despite efforts by the United States, Israel’s closest and most powerful ally, to contain it.
In the latest announced killing of a senior Hezbollah figure, Israel earlier said it had assassinated Muhammad Jaafar Qasir, describing him as a commander in charge of weapons transfers from Iran and its affiliates.
The rapid escalation that has engulfed Lebanon into war has killed hundreds. Near the city of Sidon along the Mediterranean south of Beirut, mourners wept over coffins containing black-shrouded bodies of people killed in Israeli strikes.
“The building got struck down and I couldn’t protect my daughter or anyone else. Thank God, my son and I got out, but I lost my daughter and wife, I lost my home, I have become homeless. What do you want me to say? My whole life changed in a second,” said resident Abdulhamid Ramadan.
’ALL OF LEBANON WILL FIGHT’
Many Lebanese said they were ready to resist Israeli forces.
“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 Sidon resident.
In Beirut, Israel struck a high-rise building in the central Jnah area and one in the capital’s southern suburbs that briefly closed the road to Beirut airport. The Israeli military said it had carried out a “precise strike.”
Israel has long said it would do whatever it takes to secure its northern border and let tens of thousands of Israelis return to towns they fled since the outbreak of war in Gaza a year ago, when Hezbollah began firing across the frontier in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
An Israeli security official said troops in southern Lebanon had begun limited raids into Lebanon overnight that only went a short distance over the border, adding that no direct clashes with Hezbollah fighters were reported. The military said similar such raids had in fact been taking place in recent months.
But in a clear sign that the war could expand further, the military said it was calling up four additional reserve brigades for operational missions on the northern border.
Israel has a history of fighting in Lebanon, which it invaded in 1982 in the midst of Lebanon’s own sectarian civil war. Israeli troops finally pulled out in 2000 but returned to fight another major war against Hezbollah in 2006. Since then, the border “blue line” has been monitored by the UN
The United Nations said its peacekeepers had seen sporadic Israeli incursions but had not seen a full-scale invasion.
Hezbollah, a Shiite militia formed by Iran to resist Israeli forces in Lebanon, has evolved into Lebanon’s most powerful armed force, equipped with an arsenal of missiles and rockets. It is also Lebanon’s strongest political party, and sits at the forefront of a network of Iranian-backed armed movements across the Middle East.
Israel killed its leader of more than 30 years, Hassan Nasrallah, on Saturday with a massive airstrike on Beirut that sowed panic, just days after the group was shocked when booby-trapped pagers and radios blew up across the country.