An Israeli ground invasion of Lebanon appeared imminent on Monday night as Lebanon reeled from another day of air strikes and assassinations.
In his first address since the killing of Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah, the Iran-backed group’s deputy leader, Naim Qassim, said it was “ready and prepared for a ground invasion” by Israel. “There are deputy commanders and there are replacements in case a commander is wounded in any post,” he said, vowing to continue the path paved by Mr Nasrallah.
A US official who spoke on condition of anonymity told Reuters the positioning of Israeli troops suggested a ground incursion could be imminent.
The Washington Post cited an unidentified US official as saying Israel had already said the operation would be smaller than its 2006 war against Hizbullah and would focus on border security.
Asked about the reports, US president Joe Biden, who has so far had little success urging Israel to rein in its assaults on Hizbullah or on the Hamas militia in Gaza, called for a ceasefire. “I’m comfortable with them stopping,” he told reporters.
In a video statement released as he met military troops, Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said Mr Nasrallah’s killing was not enough, and Israel would “be ready to make any effort” to return displaced Israelis to their homes in the country’s north. He said the next phase of the war along Lebanon’s southern border would begin soon.
Hamas on Monday said its leader in Lebanon, Fatah Sharif Abu al-Amine, was killed in an Israeli strike in the country’s south.
Lebanon’s army said one of its soldiers was also killed by an Israeli drone, marking the first military casualty since Israeli attacks in Lebanon escalated last week.
The first Israeli strike on central Beirut since 2006 took place early on Monday, prompting mass anxiety across the capital about which areas could be targeted next. It blew out two floors of an apartment block beside the busy Kola intersection and close to a Lebanese army post. Four people were killed, according to Lebanon’s health ministry – three of whom were members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the group said in a statement.
“I was sitting outside around 1am and then all of a sudden all of the world became on fire,” said a Syrian man selling coffee across the road, who declined to give his name, citing security reasons. “The world was a night and it became a day because there was so much light.”
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The strike happened close to a Lebanese army post.
“God only knows what they will target [next], maybe today they target there and tomorrow they will target behind me. It’s normal that I feel afraid now,” said the Syrian man. “All the people are afraid.”
An Irish woman, who asked not to be named to avoid harassment, said she became friends with two of the men who were killed, Nidal Abdel Aal and Imad Odeh, when she volunteered in a north Lebanon camp. “They worked in community outreach ... and helped to run a PFLP primary healthcare clinic in the camp. [They] were men with families, including grandchildren, who loved them, and were the exiled, leftist sons of Palestinian refugees, who had never seen their homeland, like so many in camps across Lebanon,” she said.
An Israel Defence Forces spokesman called both men terrorists, saying Abdel Aal was responsible for directing the planting of an explosive device inside a bus last year, and a shooting which injured two Israeli soldiers.
As many as a million people are thought to be displaced now in Lebanon, according to Lebanese authorities, while the death toll since September 16th is at least 1,135.
At least 100,000 people have crossed into neighbouring Syria from Lebanon, according to the UN refugee agency. Lebanon previously had a population of about 5.2 million people, roughly 1.5 million of whom were Syrians, with many previously escaping that country’s 13-year war and the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad.
While many Lebanese citizens do not like Hizbullah and are angry at its actions, the country’s population seem largely united in fear about what an Israeli invasion might mean. Many say the Israeli military has shown little regard for civilian lives and international law, pointing towards the devastation in Gaza. “I’d rather die now than see Israeli soldiers on these streets,” said one Lebanese woman on Monday evening, as she checked her phone for news updates. – Additional reporting: Reuters
