Beirut: Israel’s army chief told soldiers on Wednesday to prepare for a possible ground offensive to fight Hezbollah in Lebanon as the air force conducted hundreds of deadly strikes around the country.
“We are attacking all day, both to prepare the ground for the possibility of your entry, but also to continue striking Hezbollah,” Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi told a tank brigade, according to a statement from the military.
Lebanon’s health minister said Wednesday’s strikes killed 51 people and injured 223, including in mountainous areas outside Hezbollah’s traditional strongholds.
Hezbollah said it had targeted Israel’s Mossad spy agency on Tel Aviv’s outskirts in the morning - the first time it has fired a ballistic missile in almost a year of cross-border clashes sparked by the Gaza war.
In response, Israel said it hit 60 Hezbollah intelligence sites, among hundreds of the group’s targets struck across Lebanon.
It came amid escalating cross-border clashes, after Israeli raids on Monday killed at least 558 people in the deadliest day of violence since Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war.
Nour Hamad, a 22-year-old student in the eastern Lebanese city of Baalbek, described living “in a state of terror” all week.
“We spent four or five days without sleep, not knowing if we will wake up in the morning,” she said.
In Tel Aviv, sirens sounded following Hezbollah’s unprecedented missile launch.
Tel Aviv resident Hedva Fadlon, 61, told AFP: “The situation is difficult. We feel the pressure and the tension... I don’t think anyone in the world would like to live like this.”
Israel calls reservists
US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Hezbollah’s attack on Tel Aviv was “deeply concerning” but added there was “still time and space for a diplomatic solution here to de-escalate the tensions and to prevent an all-out war”.
The Israeli military said “over 280 Hezbollah” targets had been struck across Lebanon on Wednesday, adding the strikes were ongoing.
“Fighter jets struck 60 terrorist targets belonging to Hezbollah’s intelligence directorate,” the army said.
It also said two reserve brigades were being called up “for operational missions in the northern arena”, adding this would “enable the continuation of combat against the Hezbollah terrorist organisation”.
The United Nations Security Council said it would hold an emergency meeting on the crisis in New York on Wednesday, while UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned the situation was critical.
Rocket commander killed
The UN’s International Organisation for Migration on Wednesday said 90,000 people had been displaced in Lebanon since Monday.
Among them, “many of the more than 111,000 people displaced since October... are likely to have been secondarily displaced”, a statement from the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs added.
It came after two days of what the Israeli military called “extensive” strikes on Hezbollah positions in Lebanon.
The Lebanese group on Tuesday confirmed an Israeli claim that it had killed their rocket forces commander Ibrahim Kobeissi in a strike on the Lebanese capital.
At the UN General Assembly in New York, Secretary-General Guterres issued a stark warning.
“We should all be alarmed by the escalation. Lebanon is at the brink,” he said, while cautioning against “the possibility of transforming Lebanon (into) another Gaza”.
US President Joe Biden, whose government is Israel’s main backer, said “full-scale war is not in anyone’s interest”.
Defiant Netanyahu
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delayed his departure for New York until Thursday, where he too is due to speak at the General Assembly.
“During the day, the prime minister will hold consultations to discuss the continuation of the attacks in Lebanon,” his office said.
Netanyahu defied international calls for restraint, vowing on Tuesday to keep up Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah.
“We will continue to hit Hezbollah... the one who has a missile in his living room and a rocket in his home will not have a home,” he said.
Iran, Hezbollah’s main backer, condemned Israel’s raids, with supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei saying the recent killing of Hezbollah commanders would not crush the group.
“Some of the effective and valuable forces of Hezbollah were martyred, which undoubtedly caused damage to Hezbollah, but this was not the sort of damage that could bring the group to its knees,” he said.
Elusive ceasefire
While the Israel-Lebanon border has seen near-daily clashes for a year, the violence escalated dramatically last week, when coordinated communications device blasts that Hezbollah blamed on Israel killed 39 people and wounded almost 3,000.
Then Israel carried out an air strike on Hezbollah’s south Beirut stronghold, killing a top military commander and other fighters and civilians.
Efforts to end the war in Gaza, which analysts say are key to stopping the escalation in Lebanon, remain stalled.
Netanyahu has been accused by critics of stalling in Gaza ceasefire negotiations and prolonging the war to appease far-right coalition partners.
The war in Gaza began with Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.
Of the 251 hostages seized by militants, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,495 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN has described the figures as reliable.
