Israel informs US of plans for imminent invasion of Lebanon as tanks seen amassing near border – report

The operation would be smaller than Israel’s 2006 war against Hezbollah and focus on security for border communities, the official said.

Israeli tanks were seen amassing along the Israel-Lebanon border this morning as Hezbollah says it is ready for any Israeli land invasion.

Sirens have sounded in Nahariya and surrounding areas, the Israeli military said.

Nahariya is a coastal city just five miles south of Israel’s border with Lebanon.

Hezbollah fighters are primed to confront any Israeli ground invasion of Lebanon, the group’s deputy leader Naim Qassem said on Monday in his first public speech since Israeli airstrikes killed its veteran chief Hassan Nasrallah last week.

Israel will not achieve its goals, he said.

“We will face any possibility and we are ready if the Israelis decide to enter by land and the resistance forces are ready for a ground engagement,” he said in an address from an undisclosed location.

French Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Noel Barrot again urged Israel on Monday not to undertake any ground invasion of Lebanon, adding France will step up its support for the Lebanese army.

“I (…) urge Israel to refrain from any ground incursion and to cease fire. I call on Hezbollah to do the same and to refrain from any action likely to lead to regional destabilisation,” Barrot told reporters while visiting Lebanon.

Israel has hit Lebanon with a two-week wave of attacks, eliminating Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah and several commanders but also killing around 1,000 Lebanese and forcing 1 million to flee their homes. Hezbollah has pledged to confront any Israeli ground invasion of Lebanon.

He was speaking as Israeli airstrikes on targets in Beirut and elsewhere in Lebanon continued, extending a two-week long wave of attacks that has eliminated several Hezbollah commanders but also killed about 1,000 Lebanese and forced one million to flee their homes, according to the Lebanese government.

Nasrallah’s killing, along with the series of blows against the organization’s communications devices and assassination of other senior commanders, constitute the biggest blow to the organization since Iran created it in 1982 to fight Israel.

He had built it up into Lebanon’s most powerful military and political force, with wide sway across the Middle East.

Now Hezbollah faces the challenge of replacing a charismatic, towering leader who was a hero to millions of supporters because he stood up to Israel even though the West branded him a terrorist mastermind.

“We will choose a secretary-general for the party at the earliest opportunity…and we will fill the leadership and positions on a permanent basis,” Qassem said.

Qassem said Hezbollah’s fighters had continued to fire rockets as deep as 150 km (93 miles) into Israeli territory and were ready to face any possible Israeli ground incursion.

“What we are doing is the bare minimum…We know that the battle may be long,” he said. “We will win as we won in the liberation of 2006 in the face of the Israeli enemy,” he added, referring to the last big conflict between the two foes.

Israel, which has also assassinated leaders of the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza war, says it will do whatever it takes to return its citizens to evacuated communities on its northern border safely.

It has not ruled out a ground invasion and its troops have been training for one.

“The elimination of Nasrallah is an important step, but it is not the final one. In order to ensure the return of Israel’s northern communities, we will employ all of our capabilities, and this includes you,” Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told troops deployed to the country’s northern border.

Hours before Hezbollah’s Qassem spoke, Hamas said an Israeli airstrike killed its leader in Lebanon, Fateh Sherif Abu el-Amin, along with his wife, son and daughter in the southern city of Tyre on Monday.

Another faction, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, said three of its leaders died in a strike in Beirut’s Kola district – the first such hit inside the city limits.

The wave of Israeli attacks on militant targets in Lebanon are part of a conflict also stretching from the Palestinian territories of Gaza and the occupied West Bank, to Yemen, Iraq and within Israel itself. The escalation has raised fears that the United States and Iran will be sucked into the conflict.

The latest actions indicated Israel has no intention of slowing down its offensive even after eliminating Nasrallah, who was Iran’s most powerful ally in its “Axis of Resistance” against Israeli and U.S. influence in the region.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said Tehran would not let any of Israel’s “criminal acts” go unanswered. He was referring to the killing of Nasrallah and an Iranian Guard deputy commander, Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan, who died in the same strikes on Friday.

Russia said Nasrallah’s death had led to a serious destabilisation in the broader region.

A spokesperson for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Britain called for a ceasefire, although they added that its support for Israel’s right to self-defence was “ironclad”.

Close ally the United States has shown unwavering support for Israel despite concerns over heavy civilian casualties.

While Arab states have condemned Israel’s actions, none have taken concrete steps to pressure it to rein in its warplanes, angering Beirut residents like Abou Imad.

“You are watching as they (Israel) take over all the Arab countries and take us all. This indifference is shameful, for the Lebanese and Palestinian people,” he said.