Israel expands ground offensive against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon

Israel said Tuesday it had expanded its ground offensive against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, deploying additional troops there and calling on residents to avoid the coastal area.

On the first anniversary Monday of Hamas' deadly attack on Israeli territory, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to continue the fight until victory against Lebanon's Hezbollah and the Palestinian movement, allies of Iran, Israel's sworn enemy.

Despite the blows inflicted on Hamas and Hezbollah, whose leaders were killed, these movements continue to fire rockets into Israel, which borders Gaza to the south and Lebanon to the north.

The Israeli army announced that the 146th Division began “limited and localized operations against Hezbollah terrorist targets and infrastructure in southwestern Lebanon” on Monday, bordering the Mediterranean.

This is the fourth division it has deployed since the start of its ground offensive in southern Lebanon on September 30, 24 years after the withdrawal of its troops from this region occupied for 22 years.

In Saida, 40 km south of Beirut, fishing boats and a few small craft are at the dock, the day after Israel called on Monday to avoid the southern coast.

Evacuations requested by Israel in southern Lebanon © AFP – Nalini LEPETIT-CHELLA, Paz PIZARRO, Sylvie HUSSON

“We are fishermen with no other source of income and now all our work has stopped,” lamented Hamza Sonbol, a fisherman.

At the same time, Israel has carried out airstrikes on southern and eastern Lebanon, as well as on the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Hezbollah claimed responsibility for rocket attacks on military sites and the city of Haifa in northern Israel. About 85 projectiles were fired, according to the Israeli army. Most rockets are regularly intercepted.

– “Painful” –

Screenshot from Hezbollah television Al-Manar TV shows the movement's number 2 Naim Qassem delivering a speech, October 8, 2024 © Al-Manar – –

“Our capabilities are good, contrary to what the enemy says, who claims to have weakened us,” said Naim Qassem, Hezbollah's number two, in a televised address.

According to him, the movement's leadership is “perfectly organized” despite the “painful” Israeli strikes, an allusion to the deaths of several Hezbollah leaders including number one Hassan Nasrallah, killed on September 27 in a devastating Israeli raid on the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Naim Qassem a also said to support the efforts of the political class in Lebanon towards a ceasefire.

After weakening the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas during a devastating offensive launched in Gaza in retaliation for the October 7, 2023 attack in Israel, the Israeli army moved most of its operations to Lebanon in mid-September, against Hezbollah.

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A displaced child with her family sits in a tent set up on a seaside sidewalk in Beirut, October 8, 2024 © AFP – –

Israel is seeking to push Hezbollah, which opened a front against Israel on October 8 in support of Hamas, away from the border areas in southern Lebanon and to stop its firing to allow the return to the north of the country of some 60,000 displaced people.

The spiral of cross-border violence for a year turned into open war on September 23, with the start of violent shelling by Israel of Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon.

– “Sacred mission” –

A column of smoke rises from the site of an Israeli strike in the village of Khiam in southern Lebanon on October 8, 2024 © AFP – –

Since October 2023, more than 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon, including more than 1,110 since September 23, according to an AFP tally based on official figures. More than a million people have been displaced.

“We have defined the goals of the war and we are achieving them: to overthrow Hamas, to bring all the hostages home, the living and the dead. This is a sacred mission (…)”, Netanyahu said on Monday.

Commemorations in Tel Aviv on October 7, 2024 for the first anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel © AFP – GIL COHEN-MAGEN

The Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures. Of the 251 people kidnapped during the attack, 97 are still being held hostage in Gaza, 34 of whom have been declared dead by the army.

– 17 dead in Gaza –

On the anniversary of the attack, Hamas promised a “long, painful and costly battle of attrition” for Israel.

In the besieged Gaza Strip, which is in the grip of a humanitarian disaster, the local Civil Defense announced on Tuesday the death of 17 Palestinians, including children, in a strike on a house in Bureij (center).

“It was like an earthquake. All the people here are civilians and children!” exclaimed Mohamed Abou Khader amid the destruction in Bureij. “We want the war to stop. We've had enough of the killing.”

At least 41,965 Palestinians have been killed, mostly civilians, in the Israeli offensive in Gaza, according to the latest data from the Hamas government's Health Ministry.

The war against Hamas and Hezbollah is accompanied by an escalation between Iran and Israel, which has said it is preparing a response to the Iranian missile attack on its territory on October 1.

“Any attack on Iranian infrastructure will lead to a stronger response,” warned Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

Destruction in Bureij in the center of the Gaza Strip after Israeli raids, October 8, 2024 © AFP – Eyad BABA

According to Tehran, the October 1 attack was a response to the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah and that in Tehran of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, in an attack blamed on Israel.

Western leaders stress Israel's right to defend itself, while affirming the Palestinians' right to statehood and the need to end Israel's decades-long occupation of Palestinian territories.

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