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JERUSALEM (Reuters): Israel’s elite units launched limited ground raids into Lebanon on Tuesday, as arch-foe Hezbollah fired missiles at Tel Aviv, with the U.S. warning it had indications Iran may be preparing to enter the fray with a ballistic missile attack on Israel.
An Israeli security official said troops in southern Lebanon had begun limited raids into Lebanon overnight that only went a short distance over the border, adding that no direct clashes with Hezbollah fighters were reported.
The tit-for-tat escalation following weeks of intense Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon raised concerns of a broader Middle East conflagration sucking in both Iran and the United States.
In Washington, a senior White House official said the U.S. is actively supporting preparations to defend Israel against a direct military attack on Israel by Iran. The official added that such an attack would carry severe consequences for Iran.
Israel carried out one attack that hit a high-rise building in Beirut city’s Jnah area and one on the capital’s southern suburbs later on Tuesday that briefly closed the road to Beirut airport, two Lebanese security sources said. The Israeli military said it had carried out a “precise strike“.
Israeli forces have been carrying out raids into southern Lebanon for months, uncovering Hezbollah tunnels and weapons caches under homes and invasion plans by the group, Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said on Tuesday.
The operations had uncovered plans by Hezbollah to enter Israel and carry out an attack similar to the one led by the Palestinian militant group Hamas in southern Israel on Oct. 7 last year that triggered the current conflicts. Hezbollah has not commented on his claims.
Hezbollah denies incursion
A Hezbollah spokesperson told Reuters on Tuesday that the Israeli military had not entered Lebanese territory but that Hezbollah would be ready to fight them in direct clashes if they did.
Hezbollah said on Tuesday that it had fired the “Fadi 4” at military positions in the suburbs of Tel Aviv, Israel’s commercial capital. The missile is the fourth iteration of a series which have progressively bigger payloads and longer ranges that Hezbollah has begun to use in recent weeks.
The group also said it fired missiles at the headquarters of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency and at a military intelligence unit on the outskirts of Tel Aviv.
Israel’s ambulance service said two people had been wounded by shrapnel from the barrage of missiles.
‘Bogged Down’
The latest escalation has caused international alarm. British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said Israel should avoid a repeat of the past and not get “bogged down in a quagmire” in Lebanon.
Hezbollah has challenged Israel since the group was created in Lebanon by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in 1982.
The Israeli raids follow airstrikes that have devastated Hezbollah’s leadership, including the assassination of its chief Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut last week.
Israel’s military said its ground raids are aimed at Hezbollah strongholds along the border that threaten Israel and it is not a war against the Lebanese people. The military said on Tuesday it was calling up four additional reserve brigades for operational missions on the northern border with Lebanon.
Residents in southern Lebanon fled on Monday and Tuesday as Israeli strikes drew nearer, local sources told Reuters. At least 600 people were seeking refuge in a monastery on the southern Lebanon border after their Christian village of Ain Ebl received a warning from the Israeli military, local residents told Reuters.
Despite its biggest success against Hezbollah in decades, Israel has indicated it is primed for a full-fledged invasion of Lebanon with the stated aim of enabling thousands of its citizens who fled Hezbollah rockets to safely return to their communities near the northern border.
More than 1,700 people have been killed in Lebanon since hostilities began last Oct. 8. Israel’s strikes have displaced one million Lebanese from their homes.
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