The Israeli army called on the Lebanese on Monday to “stay away” from Hezbollah positions, vowing to launch more “intensive and precise raids” against the group “in the near future.”
The army announced on Monday that it had “attacked targets” of the Hezbollah group in Lebanon, a day after some of the fiercest exchanges of fire across the border in a conflict that has been taking place alongside the year-long Gaza war.
Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee said on the X platform that the army is “currently attacking Hezbollah terrorist targets in Lebanon,” noting that “additional details will be published later.”
Another army spokesman, Daniel Hagari, confirmed during a press conference that operations had begun to bomb “Hezbollah sites in Lebanon, after discovering intentions to fire at Israel,” calling on residents to “stay away” from the party’s sites.
IDF Spokesperson RAdm. Daniel Hagari exposing Hezbollah’s way of firing missiles from civilian homes, and how the IDF plans on dismantling it: pic.twitter.com/smkfjv6VDh
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) September 23, 2024
Asked about the possibility of a ground incursion into Lebanon, he said: “The army will do whatever is necessary to restore security to northern Israel.”
In turn, an Israeli military source told Alhurra: “We have begun attacks in Lebanon as part of the operations we have carried out in recent days, which aim to reduce capabilities and remove threats to the Israeli home front.”
The source indicated that “there will be warnings to some Lebanese to exercise caution, without the need to evacuate the population as in Gaza.”
In his statements to Alhurra, he considered that “to return the residents safely, there are two important matters: removing the elements of the (Radwan) force from the borders, and targeting the leaders and fighters (in Hezbollah).”
Alhurra’s correspondent in Lebanon reported that Israeli aircraft launched a series of raids targeting several towns in southern Lebanon, western, eastern and central Bekaa.
Meanwhile, the Civil Defense in Bekaa announced the death of one person and the injury of 6 civilians as a result of the raids.
Hezbollah fires more than 150 rockets into Israel
Alhurra discussed tonight the escalation between Israel and Lebanon and the international and regional calls to de-escalate this situation. It also discussed Trump’s refusal to hold another debate with Harris, Washington’s intention to ban Chinese self-driving vehicles, and developments in the conflict in Sudan.
Alhurra correspondent quoted a security source in Lebanon as saying, “Severe damage has been caused to homes, cars, and shops in Abbasiyeh, Batoulieh, and Ain Baal in the south of the country, as a result of the violent raids launched by the Israeli army this morning (Monday).”
The Israeli army had previously called, in a message to Lebanese villages, for anyone “who is near or inside facilities or houses where Hezbollah hides combat equipment, to move away from them immediately, in order to preserve your security and safety.”
The statement indicated that the army had monitored “in recent hours Hezbollah’s preparations to attack citizens of the State of Israel,” stressing that “it will soon attack terrorist targets in the Lebanon region to remove the threats.”
In a statement published earlier on Monday, the Israeli army explained that “following up on the alerts that were activated at 04:45-04:54 in the southern Golan Heights, warplanes successfully intercepted a drone launched from Iraq, which was on its way to Israeli territory from Syria, and there were no casualties.”
Lebanon escalation: Is it too late for negotiations or is Gaza the “key to the solution”?
With this announcement and the escalation on the Lebanese front, which included targeting prominent leaders of the Lebanese Hezbollah, pagers and wireless devices, talk of ceasefire negotiations in Gaza and the return of the kidnapped has declined significantly.
A group calling itself the “Islamic Resistance in Iraq” said it launched a drone attack early Monday morning, targeting an observation base of the Israeli Golani Brigade in the “occupied Palestinian territories,” according to Reuters.
Earlier on Sunday evening, the group said it carried out a drone attack on a “target in the Jordan Valley.”
Iranian-backed Iraqi militias have vowed to carry out attacks on Israel in solidarity with the Palestinians in the ongoing war between Hamas and Israel in the Gaza Strip, which erupted after Hamas launched an attack on Israel on October 7.
These developments come after the Chief of Staff of the Israeli army, General Herzi Halevi, reiterated that “the residents (of northern Israel) will be returned safely… and if Hezbollah does not realize this yet, it will receive blow after blow until it does.”
He stressed that the army “has raised its readiness to its peak these days.”
Deaths in Lebanon and “thousands of Israelis in shelters”… Accelerating escalation between Hezbollah and Israel
Lebanon’s Hezbollah said Sunday it had targeted military industrial complexes belonging to an Israeli company north of Haifa with dozens of rockets, in an “initial response” to the bombing of thousands of communications devices in its possession earlier this week.
Tensions have been running high in the Middle East since thousands of Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies exploded on Tuesday and Wednesday in an attack the group blamed on Israel, a claim Israeli President Isaac Herzog denied.
In turn, the Lebanese group, classified as a terrorist group in the United States and other countries, threatened to launch more attacks on Israel across the border, raising fears of a large-scale war in the region.
