Israeli commando units have made brief incursions into Lebanon in recent days to prepare for a possible wider ground invasion, according to Israeli officers and officials as well as a senior Western official. But American officials said on Monday that they believed the invasion would be a limited one.
The raids were focused on gathering intelligence about Hezbollah positions close to the Israeli-Lebanese border, as well as identifying Hezbollah tunnels and military infrastructure, in order to attack them from the air or the ground, the seven Israeli and Western officials said. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive military matter. The Israeli military declined to comment.
Israel’s security cabinet met on Monday evening to discuss whether and when to launch a major ground operation in southern Lebanon, which would be Israel’s first there in nearly two decades. Israel occupied southern Lebanon from 1982 to 2000, and briefly invaded in 2006 during a monthlong war with Hezbollah. It also invaded southern Lebanon in 1978.
Before midnight, loud explosions could be heard and flashes of light could be seen in Dahiya, the densely populated area just south of Beirut where the Israeli military had issued fresh evacuation warnings. The Israeli military had called on Lebanese in and around three building complexes in the Dahiya to evacuate the areas, saying they near Hezbollah targets.
The Israeli military also said on Monday night that three areas in northern Israel had been declared “a closed military zone.”
Israeli officials previously told the Biden administration that the commando units were conducting “limited operations focused on Hezbollah infrastructure near the border” between Israel and Lebanon, Matthew Miller, a U.S. State Department spokesman, told reporters on Monday.
“Israel has a right to defend itself against Hezbollah,” Mr. Miller said, adding, “We want to ultimately see a diplomatic resolution to this conflict.”
He blamed Hezbollah for starting the current conflict by launching cross-border rocket attacks on Israel a day after the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel. He said a U.S.-led proposal for a 21-day cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah remained on the table.
President Biden, asked about reports of Israeli operations inside Lebanon, told reporters at the White House: “I’m more aware than you might know and I’m comfortable with them stopping. We should have a cease-fire now.”
But Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defense minister, told mayors from Israeli towns along the Lebanese border that “the next stage of the war against Hezbollah will soon commence.” He said it would “constitute a significant factor in changing the security situation” along the border and allow Israelis who had fled Hezbollah rocket fire to return home.
Israeli reservists were seen gathering at assembly points in northern Israel on Monday night ahead of a potential ground maneuver in Lebanon. Military police checkpoints along the northern roads were directing arriving soldiers to register, ensuring the detailed documentation of forces in the area.
In Kiryat Shmona, an Israeli border city, at least two dozen military Humvees were seen carrying troops in full combat gear, including night-vision goggles. Dozens of logistical trucks, some armored, were also heading north, passing along the northern highways as a mobilization intensified.
Officials said that if a broader operation into southern Lebanon proceeded, Israel was expected to try to destroy Hezbollah military infrastructure near the border, most likely in an intense series of cross-border raids, rather than to advance deep into Lebanon and occupy large areas of the country. Southern Lebanon is a rugged area, filled with steep valleys in which militants can easily ambush an invading army, a factor that may have shaped Israeli military planning.
The plans suggest that Israel was seeking to capitalize on Hezbollah’s disarray, after it killed much of the group’s senior leadership in recent weeks, including its secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah. Though much of Hezbollah’s high command has been killed, the group still controls much of the Lebanese side of the Israel-Lebanon border, where, Israel says, the group has built an extensive network of military installations, rocket launchers and tunnel networks that pose a threat to residents living in northern Israel.
The Israeli government’s declared goal is to make the border area safe enough for tens of thousands of Israelis displaced by Hezbollah rocket fire over the past year to return to their homes. Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese civilians have also been displaced by heavy Israeli bombardment in Lebanon.
Israeli officials assured their American counterparts that they did not intend to follow up those incursions with a bigger operation by conventional forces or by occupying parts of southern Lebanon. U.S. officials said they believed the commandos would quickly pull back after the operations were finished.
On Monday, after the raids became public, U.S. officials said the possibility of “mission creep” remained, and that Israel could decide it needed to support the raids with a larger force. But for now, American officials say they believe, Israel will not conduct a full-scale invasion.
For nearly a year, Israel and Hezbollah have been firing deeper into each other’s territory, but they avoided an all-out war until September, when Israel targeted Hezbollah’s senior leaders and blew up hundreds of Hezbollah’s pagers and radios.
For months, Israeli special forces had also been briefly crossing the border on reconnaissance missions, though those were not to prepare for a land invasion, according to officials. Their approach changed in recent days as the incursions increased in intensity and ambition for a wider maneuver grew, the officials said.
Hezbollah said on Monday that its forces would confront Israeli troops if they carried out a full invasion. “We will confront any possibility, and we are ready if the Israelis decide to enter by land,” Sheikh Naim Qassem, Mr. Nasrallah’s deputy, said in a televised statement. “The forces of the resistance are ready for a ground engagement.”
The group denied that its fighting power or arsenal had been significantly damaged in recent weeks by Israel’s bombardments, which have killed hundreds of people, including civilians.
Since Israel began escalating the conflict two weeks ago, Hezbollah and its patron, Iran, have failed to respond with the intensity that many analysts and officials had anticipated. They assumed that if Israel began assassinating Hezbollah’s senior leadership, the group would begin firing thousands of missiles toward central Israel, overwhelming Israel’s air-defense systems and taking out key infrastructure targets, including the Israeli power grid.
Instead, Hezbollah has fired brief barrages of rockets, mostly toward northern Israel, forcing thousands of Israelis to take cover in bomb shelters but failing to exact significant damage.
Iran has not directly intervened, with officials in Tehran suggesting that they want to avoid a direct war with Israel.
Iran “will never enter into the Zionist regime’s desperate game, and they will take the wish to have a direct war with Iran to their graves,” Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi, a senior military adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Monday, according to Iranian state media.
On Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel released a video in English addressing the Iranian people, seeking to undermine their support for Iran’s leaders. “Don’t let a small group of fanatic theocrats crush your hopes and dreams,” he said, adding, “The people of Iran should know, Israel stands with you.”
At the same time, Mr. Netanyahu warned that the Israeli military could strike Iran directly. “There is nowhere in the Middle East Israel cannot reach,” he said. “There is nowhere we will not go to protect our people and protect our country.”
Amid anticipation of a possible ground invasion, Israel has been striking deeper into Lebanon. The Israeli military said on Monday that it was behind the overnight bombing of a residential building in central Beirut that killed members of a militant Palestinian group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
It was believed to have been the first Israeli strike in central Beirut since at least 2006, during the last major war between Israel and Hezbollah.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which was known for carrying out airline hijackings and bombings in the late 1960s and early ’70s, said that three of its members had been killed in the bombing, in the largely Sunni Muslim neighborhood of Cola.
Lebanon’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and fighters, said four people had been killed and four others injured. The Israeli military said it had killed Nidal Abdel-Aal, head of the Lebanese branch of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and his associate, who were responsible for attacks in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Ahmad Qanso, 60, said he had been sleeping under a nearby bridge when he awoke to the sound of an explosion. He said he and two neighbors had fled to central Beirut after Israeli airstrikes hit their village in southern Lebanon over the weekend.
“When we first arrived, we thought it was safe here,” Mr. Qanso said. “But now, there’s no safety anywhere. There’s not even shelter.”
Mohieddine Darwish, 52, who lives on the eighth floor of an adjacent apartment building, said he and his wife were planning to drive immediately to their second home in Lebanon’s northern mountains.
“It was terrifying,” Mr. Darwish said of the bombing. “It’s Beirut, not the Dahiya,” he added, referring to an area south of the capital that has been repeatedly struck by Israeli forces.
Hamas said on Monday that another Israeli airstrike on a refugee camp for Palestinians in southern Lebanon had killed its leader in Lebanon, Fatah Sherif, as well as his family.
The Israeli military said Mr. Sherif had coordinated Hamas’s ties with Hezbollah. The main United Nations aid agency for Palestinians, UNRWA, said on Monday that Mr. Sherif had been an employee, but that he had been placed on leave in March after the organization received allegations about his “political activities.”
The post Israeli Forces Conduct Raids Into Lebanon as Troops Gather at Border appeared first on New York Times.
