The Israeli military said Tuesday that troops have started “ground raids” in villages in southern Lebanon after Hezbollah said it had targeted “enemy soldiers” at the countries’ border.
A Lebanese security official said Israel had also conducted at least six strikes on south Beirut, while Syrian state media reported deadly strikes around the capital Damascus.
Israel said intense fighting erupted with Hezbollah in south Lebanon after its paratroops and commandos launched raids there, ahead of a widely expected ground incursion and after devastating airstrikes against Hezbollah’s leadership.
The Israeli military said the operations in Lebanon began on Monday night and involved the elite 98th division, which was deployed to the northern front two weeks ago from Gaza where they had been fighting against Hamas for months.
It said its air force and artillery supported ground troops engaged in “limited, localized, and targeted ground raids” against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon villages that posed “an immediate threat to Israeli communities in northern Israel”.
An Israeli strike in Lebanon early on Tuesday targeted Mounir Maqdah, commander of the Lebanese branch of the Palestinian Fatah movement’s military wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, according to two Palestinian security officials.
The strike hit a building in the crowded Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp near the southern city of Sidon, the sources said.
It marked the first strike on the camp, the largest of several Palestinian camps in Lebanon, since October 7, 2023.
The head of Hezbollah’s media office, Mohammad Afif, said on Tuesday that no Israeli troops had entered Lebanese territory, and warned that the group’s strikes on Tel Aviv hours earlier were “only the beginning”.
In a written statement to Reuters, Afif said Hezbollah had not engaged in “direct ground clashes” with Israeli troops, but that it would be ready to do so.
