Israel has launched small ground raids against Hezbollah as it prepares for a larger ground operation in Lebanon, officials say.
A US official on Monday (early Tuesday AEST) said Israel told the US about the raids under way and that Israel had not provided timing on plans for a larger operation.
The US has not told Israel to halt all of its operations in Lebanon and wouldn’t do so as Washington supports Israel’s right to defend itself, according to the official.
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A Western official, a diplomat in Cairo whose country is directly involved in de-escalation efforts, said an Israeli ground operation in Lebanon is “imminent”.
The diplomat said Israel shared its plans with the US and other Western allies and that the operation will “be limited”.
Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation. It was not clear if Israel had made a final decision on a broader operation. The Israeli military did not comment.
Hezbollah’s acting leader vowed earlier on Monday to keep battling Israel, saying the Lebanese militant group is prepared for a long fight even after much of its top command was wiped out, including its leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
Israeli strikes killed Nasrallah and six of his top commanders and officials in the past 10 days, and hit what the military said were thousands of militant targets across large parts of Lebanon.
More than 1000 people have been killed in the country in the past two weeks, nearly a quarter of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry.
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Separately, The US was sending a “few thousand” troops to the Middle East to bolster security and to defend Israel if necessary, the Pentagon said on Monday.
The additional forces would raise the total number of troops in the region to as many as 43,000.
Early on Monday, an airstrike hit a residential building in central Beirut, wiping out one apartment, damaging others, and killing three Palestinian militants, as Israel appeared to send a clear message that no part of Lebanon is out of bounds.
Despite the heavy blow Hezbollah has suffered in recent weeks, acting leader Naim Kassem said in a televised statement later on Monday that if Israel decides to launch a ground offensive, the group’s fighters are ready. He said the commanders killed have already been replaced.
“Israel was not able to affect our (military) capabilities,” Kassem said in a televised statement, the first time any senior Hezbollah figure has been seen since Nasrallah was killed.
“There are deputy commanders and there are replacements in case a commander is wounded in any post.”
He added that Hezbollah, which fought Israel to a stalemate in their monthlong war in 2006, anticipated “the battle could be long.”
A founding member of the militant group who had been Nasrallah’s longtime deputy, Kassem will remain in his acting position until the group’s leadership elects a replacement. The man widely expected to take over the top post is Hashem Safieddine, a cousin of Nasrallah who oversees Hezbollah’s political affairs.
Hezbollah’s capabilities unclear after series of major blows
Hezbollah has significantly increased its rocket attacks in the past week to several hundred daily, but most have been intercepted or fallen in open areas. Several people have been wounded in Israel. There have been no fatalities since two soldiers were killed near the border on September 19.
But Hezbollah’s capabilities remain unclear.
As recently as two weeks ago, a strike like Monday’s in central Beirut — outside of the main areas where Hezbollah operates and next to a busy transportation hub normally crowded with buses, taxis and vans — would have been seen as a major escalation and likely followed by a long-range Hezbollah strike into Israel.
But the unspoken rules of the long-running conflict no longer seem to be in effect.
It’s possible that Hezbollah is holding back to save resources for a bigger battle, including a threatened Israeli ground invasion. But the militant group might also be in disarray after Israeli intelligence apparently penetrated its highest levels.
Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, meeting with Israeli troops on Monday, said Israel would “use all the capabilities we have”, hinting at a ground operation.
“You are part of this effort,” he added.
In the past week, Israel has frequently targeted Beirut’s southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has a strong presence — including the massive strike on Friday that killed Nasrallah — but had not hit locations closer to the city centre.
The strike early on Monday killed three members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a small, leftist faction that has not been meaningfully involved in months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel has not claimed the strike but is widely assumed to have carried it out.
Also on Monday, Hamas announced that its top commander in Lebanon, Fatah Sharif, was killed with his family in an airstrike on the Al-Buss refugee camp in the southern port city of Tyre. The Israeli military confirmed that it had targeted him.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said Sharif was an employee, and was put on administrative leave without pay in March as it investigated allegations about his political activities.
Israel has accused the agency, known as UNRWA, of links to Palestinian militant groups, while the agency says it is committed to neutrality and works to prevent any such infiltration.
Hezbollah began firing rockets, drones and missiles into northern Israel after Hamas’ October 7 attack from Gaza into Israel sparked the war in the Palestinian territory.
Hezbollah and Hamas are allies and both supported by Iran, and Hezbollah said it would continue the attacks in solidarity with the Palestinians until there was a cease-fire in Gaza.
Israel responded to the rockets with airstrikes in Lebanon, where Hezbollah is based, and the fighting has steadily escalated over the past year. The Lebanese government says the fighting may have displaced up to 1 million people, although the UN estimate is around 200,000.
Tens of thousands of Israelis have also been displaced. Israel has vowed to keep fighting until the attacks stop and its citizens can return to their homes.
Israel shows little interest in ceasefire calls as it bloodies longtime foe
The US and its allies have called for a ceasefire, hoping to avoid further escalation that could draw in Iran and set off a wider war. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has shown little interest, as his country racks up military achievements against a longtime foe.
Some Israelis broke into spontaneous celebrations after Nasrallah’s death was announced. Videos circulated of crowds at bars singing a song in Hebrew mocking him.
A news anchor on a pro-Netanyahu station sang and danced as the studio audience joined in with him while a commentator on Israel’s largest TV station offered co-panelists celebratory shots.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said the country is committed to an immediate ceasefire followed by the deployment of Lebanese troops in the south, in keeping with a UN Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 war but was never fully implemented.
Mikati spoke after meeting with French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot. France, which has close ties to Lebanon, has joined the US in calling for a ceasefire.
Hezbollah, which boasts tens of thousands of battle-hardened fighters and long-range missiles capable of hitting anywhere inside Israel, has long been seen as the most powerful militant group in the region and a key partner to Iran in both threatening and deterring Israel.
But Hezbollah has never faced an onslaught quite like this one, which began with a sophisticated attack on its pagers and walkie-talkies in mid-September that killed dozens of people and wounded around 3000 — including many fighters but also many civilians.
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