Israel said Tuesday it moved ground forces into southern Lebanon for the first time since 2006, vowing a “limited” operation targeting Hezbollah militants, but raising the specter of another occupation.
It reported intense firefights around the southern Lebanese villages it was attacking. Israel continued to pound parts of Beirut and other sites with airstrikes that in recent days have killed dozens of people, including Hezbollah’s top leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
The coastal highway leading southward from Beirut — clogged last week with fleeing Lebanese families — was Tuesday all but deserted. A small number of cars stuffed with people and their belongings headed north along with a stream of ambulances, sirens blaring.
Israel, through an Arabic-language spokesman using the X social media platform, ordered the evacuation of nearly two dozen towns and villages in southern Lebanon, telling the residents to move northward some 40 miles from the border.
Some of the areas listed for evacuation were near Tyre, south Lebanon’s most populous city, including Rashidiyah, where Bassam Abdo and his son, Khaled, lived.
Khaled stood atop their Citroen van, lashing down overstuffed suitcases with rope. “I’ve left so much stuff behind, but I just took what I needed,” Khaled said, adding that they were heading to Tripoli, Lebanon’s northernmost city.
“I need to get out of here,” Bassam Abdo said. “I’m getting a heart attack from the panic.”
Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif said Israeli troops had not actually penetrated the border, but that Hezbollah fighters were prepared. He said Hezbollah fired medium-range missiles toward central Israel earlier Tuesday.
Israel said the ground offensive began with a covert border crossing overnight under the cover of heavy air and artillery strikes.
Three brigade combat teams that had been fighting together in the Gaza Strip moved to occupy areas in southern Lebanon that had already been heavily damaged by recent Israeli air strikes.
The Israeli army “is conducting limited and targeted raids along Israel’s northern border against the threat that Hezbollah poses to civilians in northern Israel,” army spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a statement. “These localized ground raids will target Hezbollah strongholds that threaten Israeli towns, kibbutzim and communities along our border.”
The Biden administration — largely sidelined by Israel as it expanded the conflict with Lebanon in recent days — said it supported Israel’s ground offensive and had received assurances from the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the operation would be limited.
It’s not the first time Israel and Lebanon have clashed. In 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon in what it described as a mission to root out Palestinian guerrillas. At one point Israeli troops marched on Beirut before eventually pulling back to a 400-square-mile “buffer zone” to, then as now, prevent attacks from Lebanon into northern Israel.
Israel withdrew — nearly two decades later. They fought again in 2006 in a month-long war.
Times staff writer Wilkinson reported from Washington.
