Israeli troops enter Hezbollah tunnels amid ongoing ground raids in Lebanon

In its statement, the Israel Defense Forces said the Hezbollah targets were located in villages close to the Israel-Lebanon border and "pose an immediate threat to Israeli communities in northern Israel".

In Short

• Ground raids target Hezbollah infrastructure posing immediate threat to Israeli communities
• Israel says Hezbollah targets located in villages close to Lebanon border
• Fresh warning to residents in southern Beirut suburbs to evacuate

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Tuesday announced that it began "limited, localised and targeted" ground raids against Hezbollah targets and infrastructure in southern Lebanon, in yet another escalation of the ongoing hostilities between the Jewish nation and the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group.

Meanwhile, A Wall Street Journal report said that Israeli troops had already entered Hezbollah tunnels near the nation's border with Lebanon before the IDF made the ground invasion announcement on Tuesday morning,

The army said the targets were located in villages close to the Israel-Lebanon border and "pose an immediate threat to Israeli communities in northern Israel".

Just hours before the IDF announcement, Israel warned residents in Dahieh, a Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut's southern suburbs, to evacuate. The warning was followed by a series of strikes in Beirut.

The IDF's ground operation comes days after Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut.

Meanwhile, more than 1,000 people have died in the past two weeks since the cross-border hostilities first started, while up to a million others are likely to have been displaced.

1. According to The Wall Street Journal report, special Israeli forces entered a network of subterranean warrens that Hezbollah members reportedly dug near the Blue Line separating Israel from Lebanon.
2. In its statement on Tuesday, the Israeli military said in a tweet that the Air Force and IDF Artillery are supporting the ground forces and that "Operation 'Northern Arrows' will continue according to the situational assessment and in parallel to combat in Gaza and in other arenas".
3. The IDF announcement comes a day after Israel’s National Security Cabinet approved the “next phase” of its war with Hezbollah. Israel had also informed the US about “a number of operations,” including ground operations, in Lebanon.
4. In the past 24 hours, at least 95 people were killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon, the Lebanese Health Ministry said, adding that 172 others were also injured in the same period.
5. On Tuesday morning, an Israeli strike targeted Mounir Maqdah, commander of the Lebanese branch of the Palestinian Fatah movement’s military wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, in Lebanon. A Reuters report said the strike hit a building in the Ain El-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp near the city of Sidon. This marked the first strike on the camp since the Israel-Hezbollah hostitlies erupted.
6. Meanwhile, in Syria, TV anchor Safaa Ahmed and two others were killed in an overnight Israeli strike on Damascus. The Syrian Defence Ministry said the Israeli military targeted Damascus with drones and planes at around 2 a.m. local time from the “direction of the occupied Golan Heights”.
7. On Monday, Hezbollah's deputy leader Naim Qassem, in a first public speech since Hassan Nasrallah's death, said that "the resistance forces are ready for a ground engagement", adding that the militant group had continued to fire rockets as deep as 150 km into Israeli territory.
8. Late Monday, Lebanese troops pulled back from positions along Lebanon’s southern border with Israel to at least 5 km north of the frontier, a security told Reuters. A Lebanese military official told AFP that the army is repositioning troops stationed on its southern border.
9. Amid the latest escalation, US President Joe Biden has again called for a ceasefire. "I'm more worried than you might know, and I'm comfortable with them stopping. We should have a ceasefire now," he told reporters when asked if he was comfortable with Israeli plans for a cross-border incursion.

10. British Foreign Minister David Lammy has also reiterated calls for an immediate ceasefire after discussing the escalation with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken over the phone.

    “We’ve both seen the reports in the media about a next phase for Israel in Lebanon. We both agreed the position that we had at the UN last week that the best way forward is an immediate ceasefire and to get back to a political solution," he told Sky News on Monday evening.