Open Editor’s Digest for free
FT editor Roula Khalaf picks her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Israel said it had launched a ground offensive in Lebanon, intensifying its campaign against Hezbollah after launching a wave of devastating airstrikes against the Lebanese militant group.
In a brief statement, the Israeli military said early Tuesday morning it had launched “limited, localized and targeted ground strikes” against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
The Lebanese warned people not to go south of the Litani River, which runs about 30km from the border, saying there was “heavy fighting”.
The extent of the Israeli incursion is unclear. But there are concerns that it could lead to an open occupation of the border area – a fear that is widespread in Lebanon, whose south has been occupied by Israeli forces for 18 years.
Neither Hezbollah nor Lebanon’s caretaker government has commented on the ground attack, which Israel carried out in defiance of calls by its Western allies for a ceasefire.
Israel’s first ground offensive against Hezbollah was in 2006, after a 34-day war with the Iran-backed group ended in a stalemate. It marks a further escalation of the conflict that has gripped the region since Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel.
It follows two weeks of dramatically escalated hostilities, during which Israel assassinated Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah, destroyed its chain of command and launched a massive bombing campaign in Lebanon that killed more than 1,000 people and displaced 1 million.
Naim Qassim, Hezbollah’s deputy leader, said on Monday that the group would not stop fighting and was ready for an Israeli ground attack.
“If the Israelis want a ground incursion, the resistance forces are ready for it,” Kassim said in the first comments by Hezbollah’s leadership since Nasrallah’s assassination on Friday.
The Israeli ground offensive was accompanied by heavy shelling of Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight, shortly after the army issued evacuation warnings to residents of several neighborhoods.
At least 95 people have been killed in Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours in Lebanon’s south, northeast and capital Beirut, the health ministry said. Lebanese media reported that Israel struck a building in southern Lebanon’s largest Palestinian refugee camp for the first time.
Israeli forces and Hezbollah began trading fire last year when Iranian-backed militias fired rockets in support of Hamas the day after the Palestinian militant group’s Oct. 7 attack.
In the months that followed, the exchanges displaced 60,000 people across the Israeli border. Israeli forces have pounded Hezbollah-held southern Lebanon for months, causing massive damage and forcing more than 110,000 Lebanese to flee the region.
At that time, the fighting was on limited terrain on both sides of the border. But as Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza has eased, its military has turned its attention to the conflict with Hezbollah, as well as stepping up attacks on other Iranian proxies elsewhere in the region.
Speaking to troops on Monday ahead of the operation, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said his country’s goal was to “return the residents of the north to their homes”.
“We will use all means at our disposal to achieve this goal,” he said.
Even if Hezbollah is damaged by Israel’s strikes, Israeli troops risk being absorbed into a protracted war in the militant group’s backyard, eroding some of Israel’s technological military superiority.
The region’s most heavily armed non-state actor, believed to have tens of thousands of battle-hardened fighters and a vast arsenal of rockets and missiles, has continued to fire hundreds of projectiles into Israel since Nasrallah was killed.
On Tuesday, Hezbollah said it fired artillery at the Israeli border town of Metula. Then early Tuesday morning fire sirens sounded in Tel Aviv.
US officials said on Monday that Israel had discussed the incursion with them, adding that Washington had sought to reduce the scope and duration of the operations.
The ground attack comes a week after the United States and its Western and Arab allies proposed a 21-day ceasefire to the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict, warning of the dangers of a wider regional war. A US official said Israel had agreed to a ceasefire before changing its mind overnight after seeing an opportunity to assassinate Nasrallah.
But the US administration is standing by Israel, sending additional troops and warplanes to the region to protect its ally and deter Iran.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with Gallant on Monday, the Defense Department said in a statement.
“They agreed on the need to eliminate offensive infrastructure along the border to ensure that Lebanese Hezbollah cannot launch an October 7 attack on Israel’s northern communities,” the DoD said. “The secretary reiterated that a diplomatic resolution is needed to ensure the safe return of civilians from both sides of the border to their homes.”
Asked if he was aware of reports of Israeli plans for a limited ground invasion and was comfortable going forward, US President Joe Biden said: “I know more than you know, and I’m comfortable with them stopping. Now we have to have a ceasefire.
