The Israeli army announced on Wednesday that it is sending an additional unit to take part in ground warfare in southern Lebanon.
The size of Israeli military units varies, but a unit usually consists of at least 10,000 troops.
Despite Israel’s claim that its operation in Lebanon was “limited, localized, targeted”, such a large number of soldiers were included – a description repeated today.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) ordered Lebanese citizens in dozens of villages to leave their homes and move north of the Avali River, about 30 miles north of the border with Israel.
The army said the IDF’s 36th Division and additional forces were joining its operations targeting Iran-backed Hezbollah. The unit includes soldiers from the Golani Brigade, the 188th Armored Brigade and the 6th Infantry Brigade, the IDF said. They are accompanied by the Israeli Air Force and the 282nd Artillery Brigade.
The army last month moved the elite 98th Division from Gaza to northern Israel.
The number of Israeli troops in southern Lebanon remained unclear following the army’s announcement of an incursion into its northern border on Tuesday.
The Israeli army has carried out some “occasional attacks” along the Lebanon-Israel border, but its troops are not on Lebanese soil, a source with the UN Interim Force in Lebanon said. Two other high-level Lebanese security sources support the assessment that Israel has yet to launch a full-scale invasion.
Israeli troops have laid the groundwork for an incursion in recent days, ramping up airstrikes in Lebanon that have killed more than a thousand people, destroyed homes and displaced some 1 million people.
Some context: Previous military operations, which Israel had previously declared limited in their targets, have proven to be anything but. Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon for several years, beginning in 1982, included a brief and limited mission aimed at destroying the Palestinian Liberation Organization in the country.
Most recently, Israel’s military announced a “limited” operation in Rafah, southern Gaza, that left the city in ruins.
