Jerusalem:
Israel’s army chief told soldiers Wednesday to prepare for a possible ground offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon as US President Joe Biden warned against “all-out war” in the Middle East.
“We are attacking all day, both to prepare the ground for the possibility of your entry, but also to continue striking Hezbollah,” Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi told a tank brigade, a statement from the military said as Israeli warplanes conducted hundreds of deadly strikes around Lebanon.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel’s military operations against Hezbollah would not stop until northern residents can safely return to their homes.
Israel’s warnings came after Hezbollah said it had targeted Israel’s Mossad spy agency headquarters on Tel Aviv’s outskirts — the first time it has fired a ballistic missile in almost a year of cross-border clashes sparked by the Gaza war.
Lebanon’s health minister said retaliatory Israeli strikes killed 51 people and injured 223, including in mountainous areas outside Hezbollah’s traditional strongholds.
Israel said it hit 60 Hezbollah intelligence sites, among hundreds of the group’s targets struck across Lebanon.
In Washington, President Biden warned of the possibility of “all-out war” after Israel’s troops were put on alert for a possible ground operation.
“An all-out war is possible,” Biden told broadcaster ABC.
“What I think is, also, the opportunity is still in play to have a settlement that could fundamentally change the whole region.”
Biden added that there was a “possibility” of a Lebanon ceasefire, but “I don’t want to exaggerate it”.
The United States is Israel’s main backer, and Biden said earlier Wednesday a “full-scale war is not in anyone’s interest”.
Israel calls reservists
Cross-border clashes intensified Wednesday after Israeli raids on Monday killed at least 558 people in the deadliest day of violence in Lebanon since its 1975-90 civil war.
Nour Hamad, a 22-year-old student in the eastern Lebanese city of Baalbek, described living “in a state of terror” all week.
“We spent four or five days without sleep, not knowing if we will wake up in the morning,” she said.
In Tel Aviv, sirens sounded following Hezbollah’s unprecedented missile launch at dawn.
Tel Aviv resident Hedva Fadlon, 61, told AFP: “The situation is difficult. We feel the pressure and the tension… I don’t think anyone in the world would like to live like this.”
US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby called Hezbollah’s attack on Tel Aviv “deeply concerning”, but added there was “still time and space for a diplomatic solution here to de-escalate the tensions and to prevent an all-out war”.
The Israeli military said “over 280 Hezbollah” targets had been struck across Lebanon on Wednesday, and added the strikes were ongoing.
“Fighter jets struck 60 terrorist targets belonging to Hezbollah’s intelligence directorate,” the army said.
It said two reserve brigades were being called up “for operational missions in the northern arena”, adding this would “enable the continuation of combat against the Hezbollah terrorist organisation”.
Defiant Netanyahu
The UN Security Council said it would hold an emergency meeting on the crisis in New York later Wednesday, as UN chief Antonio Guterres warned the situation was critical.
“We should all be alarmed by the escalation. Lebanon is at the brink,” he said.
The UN’s International Organization for Migration on Wednesday said 90,000 people had been displaced in Lebanon so far this week.
Among them, “many of the more than 111,000 people displaced since October… are likely to have been secondarily displaced”, a statement from the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs added.
Hezbollah on Tuesday confirmed Israel had killed its rocket forces commander Ibrahim Kobeissi in a strike on Beirut.
Netanyahu delayed his departure for New York until Thursday, where he too is due to speak at the General Assembly.
Israel’s premier has defied international calls for restraint.
“We will continue to hit Hezbollah… the one who has a missile in his living room and a rocket in his home will not have a home,” he vowed on Tuesday.
Iran, Hezbollah’s main backer, condemned Israel’s raids, with supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei saying the recent killing of Hezbollah commanders would not crush the group.
“Some of the effective and valuable forces of Hezbollah were martyred, which undoubtedly caused damage to Hezbollah, but this was not the sort of damage that could bring the group to its knees,” he said.
Elusive ceasefire
While the Israel-Lebanon border has seen near-daily clashes for a year, the violence escalated dramatically last week, when coordinated communications device blasts that Hezbollah blamed on Israel killed 39 people and wounded almost 3,000.
Then Israel carried out an air strike on Hezbollah’s south Beirut stronghold, killing a top military commander and other fighters and civilians.
Efforts to end the war in Gaza, which analysts say are key to stopping the escalation in Lebanon, have yet to make progress.
Netanyahu has been accused by critics of stalling in Gaza ceasefire negotiations and prolonging the war to appease far-right coalition partners.
The war in Gaza began with Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.
Of the 251 hostages seized by Hamas operatives, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,495 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN has described the figures as reliable.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
