Israel announced on Wednesday that it was preparing a “possible” ground offensive in Lebanon, after several days of bombings against positions of the Islamist movement Hezbollah in an escalation that could lead to a “total war” in the Middle EastUS President Joe Biden warned.
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“You can hear the planes from here. We are attacking all day long, both to prepare the ground for a possible entry and to continue attacking Hezbollah,” said the head of the Israeli armed forces, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, in front of a tank brigade, according to a military statement.
“Their entry there in force (…) will show (Hezbollah) what it is like to encounter a professional fighting force,” he added.
Their entry there in force (…) will show (Hezbollah) what it is like to encounter a professional fighting force.
The Israeli army previously announced the mobilization of two reserve brigades and their deployment in the north of the country to “continue the fight” against Hezbollah.
For his part, Biden considered, shortly after these announcements, that “a total war is possible,” although he also assured, in statements to the network ABCthat “the opportunity to reach an agreement that could be a fundamental change for the entire region is still at stake.”
The United States is having “active discussions” with Israel to achieve a ceasefire with Hezbollah, a senior US official told EFE.
“We are in active discussions with the Israelis, as well as other countries, to try to secure a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.”said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Israel, which says its offensive is aimed at ensuring the return to their homes of northern residents displaced by clashes with Hezbollah, has for the third consecutive day bombed southern and eastern Lebanon, two strongholds of the Iranian-backed Shiite group Hezbollah.
At least “51 people were killed and 223 wounded” in several bombings on Wednesday, which also targeted villages outside the movement’s strongholds, said Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad.
More than 90,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in Lebanon since Monday because of Israeli attacks, the UN agency International Organization for Migration (IOM) said.
The Israeli army said it had bombed “more than 2,000” Hezbollah positions during that period, including “several hundred” on Wednesday.
On Monday, the first massive Israeli strikes in Lebanon killed 558 people and injured more than 1,800, According to Lebanese authorities, this is the highest number in a single day since the end of the civil war in the country (1975-1990).
Since October, a total of 1,247 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in Lebanon in clashes between Hezbollah and Israel, according to the same source.
Climate of terror in Beirut and missiles and drones against Israel
Nur Hamad, a 22-year-old student from Baalbek, described this Wednesday the “climate of terror” since the bombings began around the city.
“We spent four or five days without sleeping, not knowing if we would wake up in the morning. The children are scared, the adults too,” he said.
In Maaysara, in a mountainous region about 30 kilometers north of Beirut, an AFP photographer saw a house almost completely destroyed, where rescuers were removing rubble.
The dead “were civilians who had evacuated their homes” in southern Lebanon, said Fatima, a resident of the village.
We spent four or five days without sleeping, not knowing if we would wake up in the morning. The children are scared, the adults too.
In Israel, Air raid sirens sounded at dawn in Tel Aviv, 100 kilometers south of the Lebanese border, when Hezbollah fired a surface-to-surface missile that was interceptedaccording to the army.
“This is the first time that a Hezbollah missile has hit the Tel Aviv area,” the military said.
The Lebanese Shiite movement said the Qader missile was aimed at the headquarters of the Mossad, the Israeli foreign intelligence service, held responsible for the assassination of Hezbollah leaders and the explosions of pagers and walkie-talkies last week, which left dozens dead.
At night, The pro-Iranian Islamic Resistance in Iraq organization claimed responsibility for a drone attack on the southern Israeli port city of Eilat.
The Israeli army said it had intercepted a drone coming from the east and that another had crashed near Eilat, while rescuers reported two minor injuries in the attack.
In recent months, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq group, a network of pro-Iran militias, has claimed responsibility for several drone attacks on Israeli targets. The Israeli military has acknowledged several attacks from the east since April, saying they were intercepted but without naming the suspected perpetrators.
France calls for UN Security Council meeting
At France’s request, the UN Security Council will meet urgently on Wednesday in New York, where concern about the escalation between the Israeli army and Hezbollah dominates the General Assembly.
In fact, French President Emmanuel Macron met his Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas in New York, to whom he expressed his condolences for the victims in Gaza and the West Bank, while calling on Israel to release funds from the Palestinian Authority.
According to the Elysée, at the meeting, which took place on the occasion of the UN General Assembly, Macron called the human toll on Palestinian territories “intolerable.”
The French president once again condemned the Israeli occupation, which he considered “a violation of international law that blocks any diplomatic solution and which must end as soon as possible.” “France remains determined to adopt new sanctions against violent settlers, in conjunction with its partners,” he said.
Fears of an escalation in the region
UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini fears Lebanon could become a new Gaza Stripwhere a conflict has pitted Israel against the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas since October 7, 2023.
Pope Francis also denounced the “terrible escalation” in Lebanon in the Vatican, calling it “unacceptable.”
“We are dealing blows to Hezbollah that it never imagined. We are doing it with strength and cunning. I can promise you one thing: we will not rest until they (displaced people from the north) return to their homes,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Hezbollah vows to continue attacking Israel “until the end of the aggression in Gaza”.
In addition to last week’s wave of explosions of Hezbollah transmission devices, which were blamed on Israel, an Israeli attack on September 20 in the southern suburbs of Beirut decimated the movement’s elite unit.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said Israel’s recent killings of several Hezbollah leaders in Lebanon will not “bring the movement to its knees.”
The Gaza war was sparked by a Hamas attack that left 1,205 people dead in Israel, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures that includes hostages who died or were killed in captivity in Gaza.
Of the 251 people kidnapped, 97 remain in Gaza, 33 of whom have been declared dead by the army..
In retaliation, Israel launched an offensive in the Gaza Strip that has so far left 41,495 dead, most of them civilians, according to data from the Hamas government’s Ministry of Health, considered reliable by the UN.
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