Lebanon prepares ground offensive

Israel’s military chief has told his troops that massive airstrikes in Lebanon targeting the Hezbollah armed group could open the way for them to “enter enemy territory.”

“You can hear the fighter jets overhead; we have been striking all day. This is both to prepare the ground for your possible entry and to continue to degrade Hezbollah,” Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said.

Lebanon’s health minister said more than 50 people were killed Wednesday in strikes that the Israeli military said hit Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters, as well as launchers and weapons stores.

The attack comes after Israel said it had shot down the first missile launched by Hezbollah to reach Tel Aviv, in another significant escalation.

Lt. Gen. Halevi’s comments are the clearest indication yet from a senior official that a ground invasion of Lebanon could be imminent.

“We continue to hit them and touch them everywhere,” he told soldiers from the 7th Brigade taking part in an exercise on Israel’s northern border on Wednesday – in a statement cited by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

“The goal is very clear: to bring back the people of the north safely. To achieve this, we are preparing a maneuver that involves your troops… entering enemy territory.”

Lt. Gen. Halevi said the troops would “destroy the enemy” and its infrastructure.

There was no immediate sign that Israel was ready to enter Lebanon and the US Pentagon said on Wednesday that it did not appear “imminent”.

But the IDF chief of staff’s remarks came shortly after the IDF called up two reserve brigades for “operational missions in the northern arena.”

When a BBC crew visited an Israeli border town on Wednesday, the military said Hezbollah fighters were to move well back from the border, to positions north of the Litani River, as required by a 2006 UN resolution.

Israel’s allies, including the United States, have said they are working to avoid all-out war in the region.

Multiple media outlets reported Wednesday that senior U.S. officials were trying to negotiate a short-term pause in the fighting between the two sides.

Cross-border fighting continued on Wednesday, with Hezbollah saying it targeted the headquarters of Israel’s Mossad spy agency with a missile fired toward Tel Aviv – the first time Hezbollah has targeted the densely populated area.

The device was intercepted by Israeli air defenses and no damage or casualties were reported. The launcher was later destroyed in an airstrike, the Israeli military said.

IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said the missile was heading “toward civilian areas in Tel Aviv,” noting that “the Mossad headquarters is not in that area.”

Hezbollah also fired dozens of additional rockets toward northern Israel, wounding two people.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military said Israeli warplanes struck more than 280 “Hezbollah terrorist targets” in the latest wave of airstrikes on Lebanon.

Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad told reporters the strikes killed at least 51 people and wounded 223, without specifying how many were civilians or fighters.

The Health Ministry reported deadly Israeli attacks in southern areas, including in Joun, in the Chouf Mountains near the southern city of Sidon, as well as in Maaysrah, in another mountainous region north of Beirut, and in the northern Bekaa Valley.

More than 600 people have been killed in Lebanon since Monday, when Israel launched an intense air campaign to destroy what it said was infrastructure built by Hezbollah since their last war in 2006.

In Lebanon, an additional 90,000 people have been displaced, adding to the 110,000 who fled their homes before the escalation, according to the UN. Nearly 40,000 people are living in shelters across the country.

Nearly a year of deadly cross-border fighting sparked by the Gaza war has also displaced about 70,000 people in northern Israel, whose safe return the Israeli government and military say they want.

Hezbollah says it is attacking Israel in support of its Palestinian ally, Hamas, and will not stop until a ceasefire is established in Gaza. Both groups are backed by Iran and considered terrorist organizations by Israel, the United Kingdom and other countries.

By firing the missile at Tel Aviv, Hezbollah may have been trying to send a message to Israel: it remains a threat despite an unprecedented wave of attacks that has severely damaged its ability to operate.

First, on Tuesday and Wednesday of last week, 39 people were killed and thousands more injured when pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah operatives to communicate exploded in two waves in Lebanon. Israel is widely believed to be responsible for these attacks.

On Friday, an Israeli airstrike on the group’s stronghold in Dahieh, south of Beirut, virtually wiped out the chain of command of its main fighting unit, the Radwan Force. The group confirmed that one of its top military leaders, Ibrahim Aqil, was among the 55 people killed.

And on Monday, Israel launched an intense and widespread air campaign targeting Hezbollah positions and weapons in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley.