Israeli special forces are already carrying out raids in Lebanon ahead of an imminent ground invasion to oust Hezbollah, officials have claimed. Elite commandos were said to be targeting the group’s infrastructure, including weapon sites and control centres, as it scrambles to recover from the loss of long-time chief Hassan Nasrallah. ‘They are targeting key sites which have been built across the border zone,’ an Israeli official told The Telegraph.
IDF tanks have massed on the northern border ahead of an anticipated incursion into Lebanon despite resounding pressure from Israel’s allies to de-escalate at once. Hezbollah today said its militants were braced and ‘ready’ for war, as Lebanon prepared to deploy its own army to the south, fearing a collapse into all out war. Israel maintains that its war is with Hezbollah, not the people of Lebanon, as it prepares to move north.
Hezbollah has fired rockets into northern Israel since the war in Gaza broke out last October, in response to the Israeli bombing of the Strip. But with some 60,000 Israelis displaced from their homes and jobs in northern Israel by the attacks, Israel has vowed to vanquish Hezbollah from southern Lebanon. An Israeli airstrike on Hezbollah’s Beirut headquarters on Friday left the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, dead, the IDF and Hezbollah confirmed Saturday.
As Hezbollah scrambles to appoint a new leader and vows retaliation, allies have been urging a ceasefire deal to stop the conflict from breaking out into a wider regional war. Still, Israel looks to capitalise on its momentum, having taken out dozens of officials linked to Hezbollah – and Hamas and Iran – in a week of intensive strikes. Hamas today announced that its leader in Lebanon had been killed by Israeli air strikes.
Hamas said its leader in Lebanon, Fateh Sherif Abu al-Amine, died today in a strike on the Al-Buss refugee camp in the southern city of Tyre – days after Hezbollah’s long-standing chief Hassan Nasrallah was killed in Beirut. The group said al-Amine was killed with his wife, son and daughter in what it called a ‘terrorist and criminal assassination’. That statement came hours after the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a secular left-wing group, said three of its members were killed in a strike on Beirut’s Kola district early today.
Most of Israel’s attacks against Hezbollah have so far been carried out in the south of Lebanon or Beirut’s southern suburbs. But this morning’s attack in the Kola district was the first within Beirut’s city limits – another escalation that observers fear could could trigger a wider war, dragging in Iran and the United States. Hezbollah deputy chief Naim Qassem assured that Hezbollah was nonetheless ready for any Israeli ground invasion, and said it would select its new head based on its existing mechanism.
Hashem Safieddine, head of Hezbollah’s executive council, has been pegged as a possible replacement for Nasrallah – though nothing has yet been confirmed. Safieddine oversees the group’s political affairs and sits on the Jihad Council, managing the group’s military operations. He is also a cousin of the late leader Hassan Nasrallah and, like him, is a cleric who wears to black turban to denote descent from the Prophet Mohammed. But the choice is not clear-cut.
Edmund Fitton-Brown, Senior Advisor to the Counter Extremism Project and former Ambassador of the UK to Yemen, told MailOnline: ‘If you look at the Hezbollah leadership roll call, they are mainly dead, many of them in the past week or so. It’s not clear to me whether there is an heir apparent. And would they want primarily a fighter or a political or religious leader?’ As the conflict rages on unabated, the U.S. and other members of the international community this weekend issued an 11th-hour appeal for restraint.
President Joe Biden warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that an all-out war in the Middle East must be avoided, even as the U.S. military ramps up its presence in the region. More than 1,030 people – including 156 women and 87 children – have been killed in less than two weeks, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry, since Israel stepped up its attacks on Hezbollah. The airstrike in the Kola district hit a multistory residential building and caused massive damage.
Shocking pictures and videos showed ambulances and fire crews gathered outside the building as flames raged inside. Israel has repeatedly targeted both Hezbollah and Hamas officials in Lebanon since the Gaza war erupted almost a year ago. A strike in January, which a U.S. defence official said was carried out by Israel, killed Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Aruri and six other militants in Hezbollah’s south Beirut stronghold.
In August, an Israeli strike on a vehicle in the south Lebanon city of Sidon killed Hamas commander Samer al-Hajj. Lebanon’s official Palestinian refugee camps were created for Palestinians who were driven out or fled during the 1948 war at the time of Israel’s creation. By longstanding convention, the Lebanese army stays out of the camps and leaves the Palestinian factions to handle security. The latest developments come as Israel also launched a fresh wave of air strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen.
The Houthis launched a ballistic missile attack toward Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Saturday when Netanyahu was arriving, prompting Israel to retaliate with its own attacks. The IDF said it targeted power plants and sea port facilities in the city of Hodeida, with pictures circulating on social media showing huge explosions. Yemen’s Houthi-run Health Ministry said the strikes killed four people and wounded 40 others, but the rebels claimed they took precautionary measures ahead of the strikes, emptying oil stored in the ports, according to Nasruddin Ammer, deputy director of the Houthi media office.
He said in a post on X that the strikes won’t stop the rebels’ attacks on shipping routes and on Israel. Mr Fitton Brown, as former ambassador for the UK to Yemen, told MailOnline: ‘Hamas and other Palestinian groups have their hands full. Also, they were sore that Hezbollah hadn’t gone all in with them against Israel. But the Iraqis and Houthis will want to make some noise. More projectiles fired at Israel are possible – and Red Sea activity.’
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