Live Updates: Israeli Commandos Conduct Raids in Lebanon as Troops Gather at Border
Israel’s cabinet was meeting on Monday evening to discuss whether and when to launch a major ground operation in southern Lebanon, which would be Israel’s first there in nearly two decades.
Israeli commando units have made brief incursions into Lebanon in recent days to prepare for a possible wider ground invasion, according to seven Israeli officers and officials and a senior Western official. But American officials said on Monday that they believed that the invasion would be a limited one.
The Israeli and Western officials said the raids had been focused on gathering intelligence about Hezbollah’s positions close to the border, as well as identifying the Iranian-backed group’s tunnels and military infrastructure, in order to attack them from the air or the ground. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive military matter. The Israeli military declined to comment.
Israel’s cabinet was meeting on Monday evening to discuss whether and when to launch a major ground operation in southern Lebanon, which would be Israel’s first there in nearly two decades. Israel occupied southern Lebanon from 1982 to 2000 and briefly invaded again in 2006, during a monthlong war with Hezbollah.
American officials said on Monday that they believed they had persuaded Israel not to conduct a major ground invasion. The understanding came after intense talks over the weekend. The United States saw some signs that Israel was preparing to move into Lebanon, and some American officials said they believed a major ground operation was imminent.
After the discussions, U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence and diplomatic negotiations, said they believed Israel was planning only smaller, targeted incursions into southern Lebanon.
Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, has hinted that Israel could send ground troops into Lebanon. On Monday, he told mayors from Israeli towns along the border with Lebanon that “the next stage of the war against Hezbollah will soon commence.”
In a statement released by his office, Mr. Gallant pledged that the next phase would “constitute a significant factor in changing the security situation,” allowing the tens of thousands of Israelis who have fled Hezbollah rocket fire over the past year to return to their homes.
Hezbollah said on Monday that its forces would confront Israeli troops if they carried out a full invasion. “We will confront any possibility, and we are ready if the Israelis decide to enter by land,” Sheikh Naim Qassem, Mr. Nasrallah’s deputy, said in a televised statement.
Officials said that if a broader operation proceeded, Israel was expected to try to destroy Hezbollah military infrastructure near the border, most likely in an intense series of cross-border raids, rather than to advance deep into Lebanon and occupy large areas of land. Southern Lebanon is a rugged area, filled with steep valleys in which defenders can easily ambush an invading army, a factor that may have shaped Israeli military planning.
The raids and plans suggest that Israel is seeking to capitalize on Hezbollah’s disarray, after it killed much of the group’s senior leadership in recent weeks, including its secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah.
Though much of Hezbollah’s high command is dead, the group still controls much of the Lebanese side of the Israel-Lebanon border, where, Israel says, the group has built an extensive network of military installations, rocket launchers and tunnel networks that pose a threat to residents living in northern Israel.
Here’s what else to know:
Reviving a cease-fire: Lebanese prime minister, Najib Mikati, called for a cease-fire on Monday and for the implementation of Resolution 1701, a 2006 agreement adopted by the United Nations Security Council in which Lebanon south of the Litani River would be controlled by U.N. peacekeepers and the Lebanese military, and emptied of Hezbollah fighters. Mr. Mikati “expressed readiness to deploy the army” and “fulfill its duties in coordination with international peacekeeping forces in the region,” Lebanon’s National News Agency reported.
Inflaming Iran: Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, released an English-language video aimed at the Iranian public, saying, “The people of Iran should know — Israel stands with you.” He also reiterated his threats against Iran’s regime, saying, “There is nowhere we will not go to protect our people and protect our country.”
Hamas official killed: Hamas said on Monday that its leader in Lebanon, Fatah Sherif, had been killed with his family in an airstrike on a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon. The Israeli military said he had coordinated Hamas’s ties with Hezbollah. The main United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said on Monday that Mr. Sherif had been an agency employee but was placed on leave without pay in March after it received allegations “about his political activities.”
Hezbollah’s future: Sheikh Naim Qassem, the deputy secretary general of Hezbollah, said in a televised address on Monday that the group would name a leader to replace Hassan Nasrallah “at the closest opportunity.” Israel killed Mr. Nasrallah on Friday in a bombardment in a densely populated neighborhood near Beirut, and launched dozens more attacks on Hezbollah targets on Sunday.
Beirut blast: Israel said it was behind a blast in Beirut that hit a residential building overnight, in the first known Israeli attack in Lebanon’s capital since Israel and Hezbollah fought a war in 2006. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a militant group based in Lebanon and Gaza that is mostly known for a string of airline hijackings and bombings decades ago, said that three of its members had been killed in the attack.
Gabby Sobelman, Ephrat Livni and Mike Ives contributed reporting.
The Israeli military had called on Lebanese in and around three building complexes in Dahiya, just south of Beirut, to evacuate the areas immediately, saying they were in the area of Hezbollah targets.
Lebanon’s state-run news agency reported two hours of continuous shelling in parts of southern Lebanon — mainly around Wazzani, Marjayoun and Khiam. Residents of the southern border town of Rmeish said they had not yet seen Israeli troops inside Lebanon. “I can only see the glow of shells falling in places far from my town,” said Najib al-Amil, the town’s priest.
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Israeli strikes on Monday killed members of Palestinian militant groups in Lebanon, including the representative of Hamas in the country. One of the attacks targeted a central Beirut neighborhood for the first time in nearly two decades.CreditCredit...David Guttenfelder for The New York Times
The United Nations says its peacekeeping troops along the Israeli-Lebanese border remain in position because “the intensity of fighting is preventing their movements and ability to undertake their mandated tasks,” said Stéphane Dujarric, a spokesman for the U.N. secretary general, António Guterres.
Israeli officials have told the U.S. that they are conducting “limited operations focused on Hezbollah infrastructure near the border” between Israel and Lebanon, Matthew Miller, the State Department spokesman, told reporters. “Israel has a right to defend itself against Hezbollah,” Miller said, adding that “we want to ultimately see a diplomatic resolution to this conflict, one that allows citizens on both sides of the border to return to their homes.”
Miller blamed Hezbollah for starting the current conflict by launching cross-border rocket attacks on Israel after Oct. 7. He said a U.S.-led proposal unveiled last week for a 21-day cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah remained an option. The U.S. is also pursuing a long-term diplomatic resolution that would require Hezbollah to withdraw forces from the border in accordance with U.N. requirements that Hezbollah has flouted. “We should be clear that the burden of that diplomatic resolution falls not just on Israel, but on Hezbollah as well,” he said.
The Israeli military said on Monday that three areas in northern Israel have been declared “a closed military zone.” The towns that were closed, Metula, Misgav Am, and Kfar Giladi, have all been hollowed of residents in nearly a year of fighting with Hezbollah. The announcement comes as Israel appears to be preparing for a possible ground invasion.
Israel said these towns were part of a “closed military zone”
Natan Odenheimer
Reporting from northern Israel
Israeli reservists are gathering at assembly points in northern Israel ahead of a potential ground maneuver in Lebanon. Military police checkpoints along the northern roads are directing arriving soldiers to register, ensuring the detailed documentation of forces in the area.
In Kiryat Shmona, an Israeli border city, at least two dozen military Humvees were seen carrying troops in full combat gear, including night vision goggles. Dozens of logistical trucks, some armored, are also heading north, passing through the northern highways as the mobilization intensifies.
Daphne Angles
Jean-Noël Barrot, France’s minister for Europe and foreign affairs, announced an immediate grant of 10 million Euros to humanitarian organizations, in particular the Lebanese Red Cross, on Monday, the day after arriving in Beirut on a military aircraft carrying two mobile medical posts and over 12 tons of medical supplies.
In a televised news conference, Barrot said he had met representatives of the families of two French citizens who had died in the airstrikes, and that the French Embassy would help citizens who wished to leave the country. He also urged Israel and Hezbollah “to refrain from any ground incursions and to cease fire.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel will convene ministers from the country’s security cabinet this evening, his office said, as the chatter surrounding a potential wider Israeli ground incursion into Lebanon reaches a fever pitch.
President Biden just told reporters at the White House that he was aware of Israel’s plans to launch a limited operation into Lebanon. “I’m more aware than you might know, and I’m comfortable with them stopping,” Biden said. “We should have a cease-fire now.”
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Reporter: “Israel may be now launching a limited operation into Lebanon. Are you aware of that, are you comfortable with their plan?” “I’m more aware than you might know and I’m comfortable with them stopping. We should have a cease-fire now. Thank you.”
Lebanon’s prime minister, Najib Mikati, on Monday called for an immediate cease-fire and said that his country was committed to the 2006 United Nations resolution that ended Israel’s last war with Hezbollah, according to the country’s National News Agency. That agreement has never been fully implemented. Under it, Hezbollah was supposed to clear out of Lebanon south of the Litani River, leaving United Nations peacekeepers and the Lebanese military in control. Mikati said on Monday he was ready to deploy the Lebanese Army south of the Litani "to fulfill its duties in coordination with international peacekeeping forces in the region.”
Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defense minister, told mayors from Israeli towns along the border with Lebanon that “the next stage of the war against Hezbollah will soon commence.” In a statement released by his office, Gallant pledged that the next phase would “constitute a significant factor in changing the security situation,” allowing the tens of thousands of Israelis who have fled Hezbollah rocket fire over the past year to return to their homes.
Palestinians lining up this summer at A.T.M.s in Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.Credit...Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times
Saudi Arabia has pledged to send financial aid to the struggling Palestinian Authority, reversing a decision made during the Trump administration to slash funding to the governing body that administers some areas in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The promise of a cash infusion won’t resolve the authority’s financial woes, but it reflects the improved relationship between Saudi Arabia and Palestinian leaders, which frayed during the Trump era. It is also a sign that the kingdom is strengthening its support for the establishment of a Palestinian state at a time when the Saudis appear to have shifted their tone on normalizing relations with Israel.
For months, the Biden administration and its allies have warned that the Palestinian Authority’s dire financial straits could foreshadow another escalation in the West Bank. Israeli forces have been stepping up raids targeting militants in which they ripped up roads and wrecked shops and homes in the territory.
The Saudi foreign ministry announced on Sunday night that it would send a monthly aid package to the country’s “brothers in Palestine” to alleviate the “humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip and its surrounding areas,” without specifying the amount or intended recipients. The commitment was made during a recent visit by the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, to Saudi Arabia, according to one of his aides.
“Prince Mohammed affirmed to the president, Abu Mazen, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s support for the Palestinian people politically and materially,” said Mahmoud al-Habbash, a senior adviser to Mr. Abbas. Mr. al-Habbash was referring to the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, and Mr. Abbas, using his nickname.
Saudi Arabia has agreed to deliver $60 million to the Palestinian Authority in six installments, with the first payment expected in the coming days, according to a senior Palestinian Authority official.
The funds will directly support the authority’s budget, said the senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information.
Four other Palestinian officials and four diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to communicate with the news media, confirmed Saudi Arabia has committed to send tens of millions of dollars to the authority.
With an economic crisis engulfing the West Bank since Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7, the Palestinian Authority has struggled to cobble together funds to pay its civil servants and security forces, who constitute much of the territory’s labor force.
Israel has frequently refused to transfer tax revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority. International aid has also dwindled for the authority, which is viewed by its allies and much of the Palestinian public as both corrupt and ineffectual.
The economic hardship has been compounded by the Israeli authorities’ blocking of tens of thousands of Palestinian laborers from entering its territory since the Oct. 7 attacks. Those laborers had brought billions of dollars annually into the West Bank’s economy.
Experts on the Persian Gulf said that Saudi Arabia’s renewed financial support for the authority was an attempt to stave off its implosion, not an endorsement of its leadership. The deliberations over sending the aid preceded the recent escalation between Israel and Hezbollah by at least several weeks.
“For Saudi Arabia, a two-state solution is essential,” said Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. “They’re not saying the Palestinian Authority is a great institution, but they are saying it must not collapse in order to preserve the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state.”
At a meeting on the sidelines of the annual United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, the Saudi foreign minister, announced the establishment of an international coalition to push for the two-state solution.
“Implementing the two-state solution is the best solution to break the cycle of conflict and suffering and enforce a new reality in which the entire region, including Israel, enjoys security and coexistence,” Prince Faisal said.
This month, Prince Mohammed said Saudi Arabia would not establish diplomatic relations with Israel before the “establishment of a Palestinian state,” an apparent hardening of his position on an issue that could reshape the diplomatic map of the Middle East.
For decades, the leaders of Saudi Arabia, like those of most other Arab countries, refused to recognize Israel without the creation of a state for the Palestinians. But after 2020, when four Arab states established formal ties with Israel in agreements brokered by former President Donald J. Trump, Prince Mohammed became the first Saudi leader to talk openly about the possibility of Saudi Arabia’s doing the same.
The Biden administration worked to broker the agreement as part of a grand bargain among the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia. But after Oct. 7, those talks slowly ground to a halt, as the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza continued without an end in sight.
Ismaeel Naar contributed reporting from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Israeli vehicles staged in northern Israel on Sunday. Israeli special operations forces have been conducting raids into southern Lebanon.Credit...Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times
American officials said on Monday that they believed they had persuaded Israel not to conduct a major ground invasion of southern Lebanon.
The understanding came after intense talks over the weekend. The United States saw some signs that Israel was preparing to move into Lebanon, and some American officials believed a major ground operation was imminent.
After the discussions, U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence and diplomatic negotiations, said they believed Israel was planning only smaller, targeted incursions into southern Lebanon. The recent raids by Israeli special operations forces would be designed to eliminate fighting positions from which Hezbollah has attacked towns in northern Israel.
But Israeli officials assured their American counterparts that they did not intend to follow up those incursions with a bigger operation by conventional forces or by occupying parts of southern Lebanon. U.S. officials said they believed the commandos would quickly pull back after the operations were finished.
Matthew Miller, the State Department spokesman, said Israeli officials told the United State that they were conducting “limited operations focused on Hezbollah infrastructure near the border” between Israel and Lebanon.
“Israel has a right to defend itself against Hezbollah,” Mr. Miller said, adding that “we want to ultimately see a diplomatic resolution to this conflict, one that allows citizens on both sides of the border to return to their homes.”
It is not clear if Israel has made a final decision, and it is possible that a full-scale invasion could still follow targeted raids, despite the White House’s concerns.
On Monday, after the raids became public, U.S. officials said the possibility of “mission creep” remained, and that Israel could decide it needed to support the raids with a larger force. But for now, American officials believe, Israel will not conduct a full-scale invasion.
U.S. officials have tried to prevent a wider regional conflict since the war in Gaza began last October after Hamas-led attacks in Israel.
Israel eventually cut back the intensity of its bombing campaign in Gaza, but months after the U.S. military had urged a shift to more targeted operations. The United States wanted the Israeli military to eschew major combat operations and said that operations in the city of Rafah needed to be more precise. The eventual Israeli operations in Rafah were extensive.
This month, some officials in the U.S. government have watched the Israeli operations against Hezbollah anxiously, fearing that the extensive attacks would provoke Iran to join the fight far more openly. But other officials believe that Israel’s actions have dramatically curbed Hezbollah’s military power. The risk of Iranian intervention remains, American officials said.
Still, to keep the wider conflict in check, American officials want to persuade Israel not to move large numbers of forces into Lebanon, and U.S. and French officials had been pushing for a cease-fire proposal. When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel authorized the strike on Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, the cease-fire plan was thrown into question.
At the State Department briefing, Mr. Miller said the proposal unveiled last week, which called for a 21-day cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah, remained on the table. The United States is also pursuing a long-term diplomatic resolution which would require Hezbollah to withdraw forces from the border in accordance with United Nations requirements that Hezbollah has flouted.
“We should be clear that the burden of that diplomatic resolution falls not just on Israel, but on Hezbollah as well,” he said.
Despite hitting pause on the effort to broker a cease-fire, Americans have tried to convince Israeli officials that a ground invasion would be counterproductive.
American intelligence agencies stuck by their assessment throughout September that any sort of large-scale invasion of southern Lebanon would court disaster. While Israel’s strikes have diminished Hezbollah’s caches of weapons and hurt its ability to launch rocket attacks, the group’s forces maintain dug-in positions in the hilly and easily defended terrain of southern Lebanon.
The Hezbollah tunnel network largely remains intact, and American officials assessed that Hezbollah fighters would be able to move through it quickly to ambush advancing Israeli forces. Many of the tunnels are far bigger than the network Hamas built under Gaza, allowing Hezbollah to move large numbers of missiles and vehicles around southern Lebanon undetected.
Matthew Cassel
Video Journalist reporting from Lebanon
People streaming through Beirut’s bustling Cola Junction stared in disbelief at a damaged apartment building that was struck by Israel overnight. It was the first known Israeli strike in the center of the Lebanese capital in nearly two decades. Mohamed al-Hoss, a resident of the predominantly Sunni Muslim neighborhood, said that even during the 34-day war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006, the area had been spared. “We’re in shock — we’ve never experienced anything like this,” he said.
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Johnatan Reiss
Reporting from Tel Aviv
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, released an English-language video addressing the Iranian public, saying, “The people of Iran should know — Israel stands with you.” He reiterated his threats against Iran, saying: “There is nowhere in the Middle East Israel cannot reach. There is nowhere we will not go to protect our people and protect our country.”
The overnight strike in the Cola neighborhood in Beirut appeared to have been the first known Israeli strike in the city center since 2006. Israel has struck the densely populated Dahiya area to the south many times recently, with most of those strikes coming after a massive bombing attack on Friday that killed the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah there.
Strike in Beirut’s Cola neighborhood
The strike appeared to be Israel’s first in central Beirut since 2006.
Israel struck the Dahiya on Jan. 2 for the first time since the war in Gaza began last October, targeting a Hamas official. It struck one other time before September, killing the senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr on July 30.
Along with Mr. Shukr, Israel killed two other members of Hezbollah’s highest military body, the Jihad Council, in the area: Ibrahim Aqeel and Ali Karaki, who was killed alongside Nasrallah.
The strike on Mr. Aqeel killed at least 45 people, according to Lebanese authorities, including three children.
At least 45 people were killed and 70 others wounded in an Israeli strike on Sunday near the southern coastal city of Sidon in Lebanon, according to the country’s health ministry. It appears to have been one of the deadliest incidents of the conflict, with verified video showing at least one residential building toppling to the ground. Nearly half of those killed were displaced people from southern Lebanon, the health minister, Firass Abiad, said in an interview.
An apartment block damaged by a blast on Monday in Beirut, Lebanon.Credit...David Guttenfelder for The New York Times
Hours after a blast hit an apartment building in Cola, a neighborhood in western Beirut, Lebanese soldiers had cordoned off the area. Chunks of cinder blocks thrown from the building were scattered around.
“It was terrifying,” said Mohieddine Darwish, 52, who lives on the eighth floor of an adjacent apartment building. “It’s Beirut, not Dahiya,” Mr. Darwish added, referring to a dense urban area near Beirut where the militant group Hezbollah holds sway, one that Israel has repeatedly hit with airstrikes over the past week.
Cola is a largely Sunni Muslim neighborhood within the city limits. Lebanon’s health ministry said the blast had killed four people and injured four others.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a militant group based in Lebanon and Gaza, said that three of its members had been killed. On Monday afternoon, the Israeli military claimed responsibility for the blast, saying it had “struck and eliminated” the head of the militant group’s Lebanon branch and an associate. It was the first known Israeli strike in central Beirut since Israel and Hezbollah fought a war in 2006.
Mr. Darwish said he had been asleep with his wife when he woke up to the sound of an explosion and the crash of concrete hitting the sidewalk.
He immediately grabbed a bag of clothes and blankets he had packed days earlier, and he and his wife ran downstairs to their car. They set off for their second home in Lebanon’s northern mountains. The city, they deemed, was no longer safe.
Nearby, Ahmad Qanso, 60, gazed over at the destruction, leaning on his wooden cane. He said he was sleeping under a nearby bridge — one of many Lebanese who have spent nights in the open air in Beirut since Israeli bombardment escalated in recent days — when he woke up to what sounded like an explosion. “I was shocked,” he said.
Mr. Qanso and two of his neighbors arrived in Beirut on Saturday after fleeing their village of Chehabyeh, in southern Lebanon, which has been hit by Israeli airstrikes. “When we first arrived, we thought it was safe here,” he said. “But now, there’s no safety anywhere. There’s not even shelter.”
Natan Odenheimer
Reporting from northern Israel
Large crowds of Israeli soldiers are moving through gas stations and highway rest stops in northern Israel, while military armored vehicles and logistical trucks drive along the main roads.
The Israeli military said it was responsible for an overnight strike in Beirut that killed members of a militant group based in Lebanon and Gaza, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which is mostly known for a string of airline hijackings and bombings decades ago. It was Israel’s first known strike in the city center since 2006.
Fateh Sharif, the Hamas official killed in an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon overnight, had been an employee with UNRWA, the main U.N. agency aiding Palestinian refugees, said the agency’s communications director, Juliette Touma. He had been put on administrative leave without pay in March and was being investigated after UNRWA received allegations about his political activities, she said. Israel has alleged that a large number of UNRWA employees in Gaza are affiliated with the militant group, a claim the agency has disputed.
The Lebanese army said on Monday that a soldier had been killed by an Israeli drone strike while driving through an army checkpoint in southern Lebanon. Lebanon is not a party to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, but its soldiers have been killed on a few occasions since hostilities flared starting last October.
Hezbollah’s deputy leader, Sheikh Naim Qassem, speaks on video from an unknown location, days after the Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike.Credit...Al Manar TV, via Reuters
Three days after Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed by Israeli bombs near Beirut, the group’s deputy leader said on Monday that it would name a new chief “at the closest opportunity,” without specifying when.
The televised statement by the deputy leader, Sheikh Naim Qassem, was the first public address by a senior Hezbollah figure since Mr. Nasrallah’s killing. It appeared aimed at reassuring the group’s members after a series of severe Israeli attacks killed and wounded many of its fighters and leaders over the last two weeks.
Speaking from an undisclosed location, Sheikh Qassem called on Hezbollah members to follow contingency plans put in place to ensure that alternate commanders were available if anything happened to the group’s leaders.
He denied reports that Israel’s attacks, which have pounded targets in Hezbollah strongholds across Lebanon over the past week and killed hundreds of people, had significantly damaged the group’s arsenal or reduced its fighting power.
Some Israeli leaders have spoken of the possibility of a ground invasion of southern Lebanon aimed at wiping out Hezbollah’s military infrastructure near the border. Sheikh Qassem said Hezbollah was ready to fight any ground incursion.
“We will confront any possibility, and we are ready if the Israelis decide to enter by land,” he said. “The forces of the resistance are ready for a ground engagement.”
Sheikh Qassem also denied Israeli claims that Mr. Nasrallah had been killed during a large meeting with many other senior officials, saying instead that those killed with him included Ali Karaki, a Hezbollah leader; Abbas Nilforoushan, a senior Iranian military official; Mr. Nasrallah’s head of security; and another close associate.
With flights out of Beirut’s airport dwindling, advertisements have sprung up on Instagram offering to take those who want to flee by charter yacht across the Mediterranean to Cyprus. Some international organizations with foreign staff have already begun to use that route. Those with less money are taking more cumbersome routes. Bus companies are offering long-haul trips up the coast of northern Lebanon into Syria and looping back into Jordan, where people can catch international flights.
Lebanon’s health minister, Firass Abiad, said that the death toll from recent Israeli strikes was an underestimate and that there would be a “long list of missing” after attacks ebb, explaining that the ministry only reports on casualties received by hospitals. “These numbers do not include body parts or people under the rubble,” he told The New York Times. The officially confirmed death toll in Lebanon since last Oct. 7 is over 1,700 people — most killed in the last two weeks.
An Israeli tank in a staging area in northern Israel, on Sunday.Credit...Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times
Israeli commando units have made brief incursions across the border into Lebanon in recent days to prepare the ground for a possible wider invasion in the near future, according to seven Israeli officers and officials and a senior Western official.
The officials said the raids had focused on gathering intelligence about Hezbollah positions close to the border, as well as identifying Hezbollah tunnels and military infrastructure, in order to attack them from the air or the ground. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive military matter. The Israeli military declined to comment.
Israel’s cabinet was expected to discuss on Monday evening whether and when to launch a major ground operation in southern Lebanon, which would be Israel’s first there in nearly two decades. Israel occupied southern Lebanon from 1982 to 2000 and briefly invaded again in 2006, during a monthlong war with Hezbollah.
Officials said that if a broader operation proceeds, Israel was expected to try to destroy Hezbollah military infrastructure near the border, likely in an intense series of cross-border raids, rather than to advance deep into Lebanon and occupy large areas of land. Southern Lebanon is a rugged area, filled with steep valleys in which defenders can easily ambush an invading army, a factor that may have shaped Israeli military planning.
The raids and plans suggest that Israel is seeking to capitalize on Hezbollah’s disarray, after it killed much of the group’s senior leadership in recent weeks, including its secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah. Though much of Hezbollah’s high command is dead, the group still controls much of the Lebanese side of the Israel-Lebanon border, where, Israel says, the group has built an extensive network of military installations, rocket launchers and tunnel networks that pose a threat to residents living in northern Israel.
The Israeli government’s declared goal is to make the border area safe enough for tens of thousands of Israelis displaced by Hezbollah rocket fire over the last year to return to their homes.
Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese civilians have also been displaced by Israeli fire on the other side of the border. Hezbollah and Israel first fought each other during Israel’s occupation of Lebanon in the 1980s, but the current conflict began last October after Hezbollah began firing into Israeli-controlled territory, leading to a low-intensity border war.
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Displaced Lebanese, fleeing the bombardment of their neighborhood, in Martyrs’ Square in Beirut on Saturday.Credit...David Guttenfelder for The New York Times
For nearly a year, the two sides have been gradually firing deeper into each other’s territory, but they avoided an all-out war until this month, when Israel targeted Hezbollah’s senior leaders and blew up hundreds of Hezbollah’s pagers and radios.
For months, Israeli special forces have also been briefly crossing the border on reconnaissance missions though those were not to prepare the ground for a land invasion, according to five of the officials.
Their approach changed in recent days as the incursions increased in intensity and ambition for a wider maneuver, three of the officials said.
Hezbollah said on Monday that its forces would confront Israeli troops if they mounted a full invasion. The group also denied that its fighting power or arsenal had been significantly damaged in recent weeks by Israel’s bombardments, which have killed hundreds of people, including civilians.
“We will confront any possibility, and we are ready if the Israelis decide to enter by land,” Sheikh Naim Qassem, Mr. Nasrallah’s deputy, said in a televised statement. “The forces of the resistance are ready for a ground engagement.”
Since Israel began escalating the conflict two weeks ago, Hezbollah and its benefactor, Iran, have failed to respond with the intensity that many analysts and officials had anticipated. They assumed that if Israel began assassinating Hezbollah’s senior leadership, the group would begin firing thousands of missiles toward central Israel, overwhelming Israel’s air defense systems and taking out key infrastructure targets, including the Israeli power grid.
Instead, Hezbollah has fired brief barrages of rockets, mostly toward northern Israel, forcing thousands of Israelis to take cover in their bomb shelters but failing to exact significant damage. And Iran has not directly intervened.
Still, American officials said on Monday that they had pressed Israel to avoid a full-scale invasion of Lebanon, amid fears that a more extensive attack would provoke Iran to join the fight far more openly in order to protect its proxy.
After discussions over the weekend with Israeli counterparts, the U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence and diplomatic negotiations, said they believed Israel was planning only smaller, targeted incursions into southern Lebanon.
Julian E. Barnes, Ben Hubbard and Gabby Sobelman contributed reporting.
Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, continued the drumbeat of officials hinting that Israel could send ground troops into Lebanon. “Eliminating Nasrallah was an important stage, but it’s not everything. We will mobilize all our capabilities,” Gallant told an armored tank brigade in a video released by his office. “If someone on the other side misunderstood that, that means all our capabilities, and you’re part of this effort.”
The Israeli military confirmed that it had killed Fatah Sherif, Hamas’s leader in Lebanon, in an airstrike overnight. The military said he had coordinated Hamas’s ties with Hezbollah and worked to strengthen its presence in Lebanon. Hamas issued a statement earlier mourning him, and said his wife and two children were killed alongside him.
Footage showed emergency personnel responding to the strike on the Cola neighborhood of Beirut, Lebanon.CreditCredit...Fadel Itani/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Emergency crews in Beirut were working early Monday in an area of the city where an apparent Israeli strike damaged a residential building, The Associated Press reported.
If Israel is confirmed to be behind the attack, it would be the first known Israeli strike within Beirut since Israel’s 2006 war with Hezbollah, a militia backed by Iran. Israel has been stepping up its attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon over the past two weeks, killing its leader and striking targets nearly daily.
The A.P. released videos from the Lebanese capital on Monday that showed people and emergency workers gathering below a damaged multistory building in the largely Sunni Muslim neighborhood of Cola. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
A militant group based in Lebanon and Gaza, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, said that three of its members had been killed in the blast in Cola. That claim by the group, which is mostly known for a string of airline hijackings and bombings decades ago, could not be independently verified.
The intensifying cadence of Israeli strikes has stretched deep into Lebanon. Israel has said that most have been directed at Hezbollah, whose leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed late Friday by Israeli bombs. But the military has also hit other groups, including a strike against Iran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen.
Gideon Saar had been a longtime opponent of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Credit...Jalaa Marey/Pool, via Reuters
Gideon Saar, a member of Israel’s opposition, announced on Sunday that he would be joining Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, giving the Israeli leader’s fragile coalition an added layer of support.
Mr. Saar’s decision comes as Mr. Netanyahu continues to face criticism over his handling of the war between Israel and Hamas, including from within his government. It also represented a reversal: Mr. Saar had been one of Mr. Netanyahu’s staunchest opponents in recent years.
He and three other members of his party will be joining the coalition, said Michael Maoz, a spokesman for Mr. Saar. Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition will in effect grow to 68 members from 64; there are 120 members in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.
The prime minister and his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, have frequently clashed since the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, fueling speculation that Mr. Netanyahu could be looking for a way to fire him.
Mr. Saar had originally sought to become defense minister, but a deal that would have landed him that job fell apart after Israel exponentially increased its attacks on Hezbollah two weeks ago.
Later on Sunday, the government unanimously approved appointing Mr. Saar as a minister without a portfolio.
Explaining his decision, Mr. Saar said he did not see value in continuing to sit in the opposition, most of whom hold different views from his on the war.
“This is a time in which it’s my obligation to try to contribute to decision making,” he said.
The capital of Yemen last week. The war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza has expanded to other parts of the Arab world where Iranian-backed groups dominate, including Yemen.Credit...Abdallah Adel/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The Israeli military conducted airstrikes in Yemen on Sunday after Iranian-backed Houthis there fired three missiles at Israel over the past couple of weeks.
The strikes, coming as Israel also bombarded Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, highlighted how the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza has expanded to other parts of the Arab world where Iranian-supported groups dominate.
For months, the Houthis have been conducting attacks against Israel and menacing trade in the Red Sea in solidarity with Hamas, whose fighters spearheaded the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, setting off the war in Gaza. Israel’s strikes on Sunday marked the second known time that Israel has retaliated against the Houthi attacks by striking in Yemen, around 1,000 miles away from its southernmost tip.
In a statement, the military said dozens of its planes had participated in attacking power stations and a seaport in the province of Hodeidah that it claimed were being used to import munitions from Iran, military supplies and oil.
Nasruddin Amer, a Houthi spokesman, said Israel’s attacks would not prevent the group from continuing to fire on Israel. “We’re at war with the Zionist enemy and our operations will not stop,” he said in a text message.
Al-Masirah, a TV channel affiliated with the Houthis, reported that the strikes hit oil depots at the Ras al-Issa port as well as areas near the Hodeidah port. In a post on X, Mr. Amer said the oil depots at the Ras al-Issa and Hodeidah ports had been emptied in advance.
A spokesman from the Houthi-run health ministry said on Sunday that four people had been killed and about 40 were wounded, some of whom were in critical condition. “This is an initial tally and paramedics are still working on the scenes,” said Anis al-Asbahi, the spokesman of the Sana-based health ministry.
Humanitarian experts have warned that targeting ports in northern Yemen could exacerbate an already dire humanitarian situation.
“Over half of Yemen’s population is dependent on humanitarian aid,” and much of it flows in through ports in the country’s north, said Niku Jafarnia, a researcher for Human Rights Watch focusing on Yemen.
On Friday and Saturday, the Houthis fired missiles toward central Israel. The Israeli military said both were intercepted.
On July 19, the Houthis launched a drone attack on Tel Aviv that crashed into a building near the U.S. Embassy branch office, killing one person and wounding several others.
A day later, Israeli fighter jets bombed the Red Sea port of Hodeidah, which is controlled by the Houthis. The July strikes killed three people and injured 87, according to the Houthi-run health ministry.
Human Rights Watch called Israel’s retaliation at the time “an apparently unlawful indiscriminate or disproportionate attack on civilians.”
The Houthis are a Yemeni Shiite militia that over the past decade has seized control of large parts of western Yemen, including the capital, Sana, and the Red Sea coastline. While the group’s antagonism toward Israel long preceded the war in Gaza, the Houthis had rarely attacked Israeli interests before last October.
Since November, the Houthis have targeted ships that they claim have links to Israel in the Red Sea, a key trade route between Asia, Europe and the Middle East. In response, the United States, Britain and other allies of Israel have attacked Houthi weapons depots, missile systems and radar facilities in Yemen.
Ismaeel Naar and Shuaib Almosawa contributed reporting to this article.
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