Lebanese troops pulled back from the border with Israel late on Monday local time as a ground invasion by Israel looked imminent, just days after Israel killed the head of Lebanese armed group Hezbollah in an escalation of regional tensions.
A US official who spoke on condition of anonymity told Reuters the positioning of Israeli troops suggested a ground incursion could be imminent.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told local council heads in northern Israel that the next phase of the war along Lebanon’s southern border would begin soon and support the aim of bringing home Israelis who have fled Hezbollah rockets during nearly a year of border warfare.
He also told troops: “We will use all the means that may be required – your forces, other forces, from the air, from the sea, and on land. Good luck.”
Amal Al-Hourani, mayor of Jdeidet Marjayoun, a Christian-majority Lebanese village less than 10 km from the border, told Reuters that two locals had received calls apparently from the Israeli army telling them to evacuate the area as soon as possible.
Friday’s assassination of Nasrallah – the most powerful leader in Tehran’s “Axis of Resistance” against Israeli and US interests in the Middle East – was one of the heaviest blows in decades to both Hezbollah and Iran.
After two weeks of intensive airstrikes and a string of assassinations of Hezbollah commanders, Israel has suggested ever more strongly that a land invasion is looming.
Hezbollah says it’s ready
Hezbollah’s deputy leader Naim Qassem, in a first public speech since Israeli airstrikes killed Nasrallah, said that “the resistance forces are ready for a ground engagement”.
As he spoke, Israeli airstrikes in Beirut and elsewhere in Lebanon continued, extending a campaign that has eliminated several Hezbollah commanders but also killed about 1,000 civilians and forced one million to flee their homes, according to the Lebanese government.
The death toll from an Israeli strike on the southern Lebanese town of Ain Deleb rose to 45, Lebanon’s health ministry said on Monday.
Nasrallah’s killing, along with the assassinations and systematic attacks on the group’s communications devices, constitute the biggest blow to the Shi’ite movement since Iran created it in 1982 to fight Israel.
Nasrallah built Hezbollah into Lebanon’s most powerful military and political force, with a wide reach across the Middle East.
Hezbollah must now replace a charismatic, towering leader who the West branded a terrorist mastermind but who to millions of supporters was a hero who stood up to Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Hezbollah’s main backer, Iran, that “there is nowhere we will not go to protect our people and protect our country”.
In a three-minute video clip in English that he addressed to the Iranian people, he accused their government of plunging the Middle East “deeper into war” at the expense of its own people, whom it was bringing “closer to the abyss”.
