Israel is shelling the border and targets near Beirut, the Lebanese army has withdrawn

Reports of an Israeli ground attack on Lebanon against the Hezbollah movement, which has been attacking Israel since October, are taking real shape. Lebanon’s health ministry said the death toll rose to 95 on Monday.

Israeli media report on attacks on Lebanese targets near the border. Artillery strikes continued near the capital Beirut in the south of the country on Tuesday night. According to unofficial information, the target is the area around the civilian airport.

Another fact that supports the upcoming ground operation is that Lebanese military units will be removed five kilometers into the country.

Reuters reported an explosion near Beirut about an hour after the Israeli army told residents of three areas in the southern suburbs to evacuate. The military said it could hit the sites because Hezbollah has warehouses and bases there.

Heavy artillery shelling is then reported in southern Lebanon. According to CNN, artillery is attacking areas near the border and some roads on the Israeli side are blocked due to a large number of tanks and other military equipment. The Israeli army declared a military zone over several towns near the Lebanese border, and the army spokesman urged journalists not to report on troop movements beyond official information.

American diplomacy already said on Monday afternoon of our time that they received information from Israel about limited ground attacks Lebanon.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant also mentioned this situation in his statements, who said that the next phase of the war against the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, which is in charge of northern Israel, will begin soon. .

The US Department of Defense has announced that the United States is sending several thousand additional troops to the Middle East to support Israel’s security and defense if needed. In particular, the air forces will be strengthened.

But there are also voices criticizing Israel’s activities. For example, from the President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan. According to him, the UN General Assembly should recommend the use of force against Israel if the UN Security Council does not intervene against this state. The Turkish president strongly condemns Israel’s strikes on Lebanon and its offensive in the Palestinian Gaza Strip. Erdogan also called on the Muslim world and the international community to move against Israel’s crimes.

Information about the Israeli attack began to multiply already on Monday, US State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller said that Israel had informed the US about a certain number of operations in Lebanon. “They told us at the time that this was a limited operation targeting Hezbollah infrastructure at the border,” Miller said.During the day, for example, CNN and other media reported on the operation of Israeli special forces in the Lebanese area, referring to unnamed sources. The aim of the operation was to gather information and destroy some targets.

An unnamed US official told Reuters that an Israeli ground attack on Lebanon could begin very soon. This is indicated by the use of Israeli military forces, which the United States sees. He did not want to comment further on the matter.

Israel’s ground operations could begin immediately, the Washington Post wrote, citing a source in the US government, which Israel had told about its intentions.

The planned ground offensive should be smaller in scale than the war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, the most intense of which lasted about a month, writes The Washington Post. It is to focus in particular on the border area with Israel, where the army wants to destroy the weapons and infrastructure of Hezbollah, whose military wing the EU considers a terrorist group.

“The next phase of the war against Hezbollah will begin soon,” Galant said this afternoon. According to him, this phase will make it possible to create conditions for the return of people evacuated in northern Israel because of shelling by Hezbollah. “We will change the situation and return the residents to their homes,” he said.

“Getting rid of Nasrallah is a very important step, but it is not everything. We will use all our capabilities,” Galant told troops stationed in northern Israel near the border with Lebanon earlier, referring to an Israeli airstrike on Friday that killed a long-time commander – Hassan Nasrallah’s Hezbollah period on the outskirts of Beirut.

The Israeli military announced that she announced military zone closed to civilians in three municipalities near the Lebanese border. Units from the UN’s UNIFIL mission in southern Lebanon have announced that they are suspending their surveillance activities due to the intensity of the fighting. A Lebanese source told Reuters that the Lebanese army had withdrawn from some of its positions in the south, which could be another sign of a larger Israeli military operation to come.

US President Joe Biden, in response to a question about Israel’s possible offensive in Lebanon, said that he would be satisfied if Israel stopped its campaign. “We need a truce now,” he said, according to CNN.Last week, France and the US proposed a 21-day truce between Lebanon and Israel.

Israeli army officials already said last week, when the Israeli air force contributed significantly to strikes against Hezbollah in many places in Lebanon, once again that ground forces were ready to intervene to southern Lebanon with the aim of pushing Hezbollah away from the borders and blocking it. throwing stones at Israel.

The acting head of Hezbollah, Naim Qasim, said today in his first public appearance since the killing of Nasrallah that if Israel decides to launch a ground operation, Hezbollah fighters are ready to fight and defend Lebanon.

“The defense forces are ready for ground combat,” Kasim said. “We will win as we won in 2006 in the liberation against the enemy of Israel,” he said, referring to the second war in Lebanon, which lasted a month in the summer of that year and in which both sides thought they were winning.