Israel launches ground raids in south Lebanon, ignoring US, EU calls for restraint

Israel's military said its troops began limited ground raids against Hezbollah targets in the border area of southern Lebanon early on Tuesday (1 October), as a ground invasion by its troops appeared to be getting under in spite of Western calls for restraint.

Calling the campaign Operation Northern Arrows, the military said in a statement that the targets were in villages close to the border and posed "an immediate threat" to communities in northern Israel. It said the air force and artillery were supporting ground forces with "precise strikes."

Local residents in the Lebanese border town of Aita al-Shaab reported heavy shelling and the sound of helicopters and drones in the sky.  Flares were repeatedly launched over the Lebanese border town of Rmeish, lighting up the night sky.

On Monday, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told local council heads in northern Israel that the next phase of the war along Lebanon's southern border would begin soon, and would support the aim of bringing home Israelis who have fled Hezbollah rockets during nearly a year of border warfare.

International powers are scrambling to prevent the conflict between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah from spiralling into a broader war after the killing of the group's leader Hassan Nasrallah.

The intensive air strikes have eliminated several Hezbollah commanders but also killed about 1,000 civilians and forced one million to flee their homes, according to the Lebanese government.

In the past 24 hours, at least 95 people had been killed and 172 wounded in Israeli strikes on Lebanon's southern regions, the eastern Bekaa Valley, and Beirut, Lebanon's health ministry said early on Tuesday.

International warnings

US President Joe Biden and the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres have opposed any ground invasion of Israel's northern neighbour.

On Monday, Biden again called for a ceasefire.

"I'm more worried than you might know and I'm comfortable with them stopping," Biden told reporters when asked if he was comfortable with Israeli plans for a cross-border incursion. "We should have a ceasefire now."

Israel last week rejected a proposal by the US and France calling for a 21-day ceasefire on the Lebanon border to give time for a diplomatic settlement that would allow displaced civilians on both sides to return home.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in talk on Monday with Israel's Defense Minister Yoav Gallant reaffirmed that a diplomatic resolution is required to ensure that civilians can return safely to their homes on both sides of the border, according to the US Department of Defense.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Monday said any further Israeli operations in Lebanon have to be avoided, as world leaders urged against a ground invasion.

"Arms should now be silenced, and the voice of diplomacy should speak and be heard by all," Borrell said after emergency talks between EU foreign ministers.

The EU has so far struggled to speak with one voice -- or exert much influence -- to curb the violence that has roiled the region over the past year.

UN refugee agency chief Filippo Grandi said "well over 200,000 people are displaced inside Lebanon", while more than 100,000 have fled to neighbouring Syria.

Hezbollah's deputy leader Naim Qassem said on Monday that "the resistance forces are ready for a ground engagement."

Israel strikes refugee camp

Israel launched a strike on a building in Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian camp near south Lebanon's Sidon early on Tuesday, a Palestinian source and Lebanese media said.

It marked the first strike on the overcrowded camp, Lebanon's largest of several Palestinian camps, since cross-border hostilities broke out nearly a year ago.

Palestinian security officials said the Israelis targeted Mounir Maqdah, commander of the Lebanese branch of the Palestinian Fatah movement's military wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. Maqdah's fate was unknown.

The United Natiions refugee agency UNRWA provides services to nearly 50,000 refugees in the crowded camp.

Sidon is about 50 miles north of the border with Israel.

UNRWA says the refugees mostly came from coastal towns in pre-1948 Palestine, but that in more recent years it also housed Syrians who had fled their country's civil war.

Drones and rockets intercepted

The Israeli military said that rocket warning sirens were sounded in the area of Meron in northern Israel's Upper Galilee region after around 10 projectiles were detected crossing from Lebanon. It said some were intercepted and some fell "in open areas."

The military also said it had detected and intercepted a drone over the Mediterranean Sea, dozens of kilometres off the coast of central Israel.

Fatah commander targeted

An Israeli strike in Lebanon early on Tuesday targeted Mounir Maqdah, a commander of the Lebanese branch of the Palestinian Fatah movement's military wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, according to two Palestinian security officials.

His fate was unknown.

The strike hit a building in the crowded Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp near the southern city of Sidon, the sources said.

It marked the first strike on the camp which is Lebanon's largest of several Palestinian camps since cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel broke out nearly a year ago.

Fatah is the mainstream Palestinian nationalist movement founded in 1965 by late leader Yasser Arafat. It is a secular party and the largest of the various factions that make up the Palestine Liberation Organisation. Hamas is not in the PLO.

In Syria, three civilians were killed and nine others injured in an Israeli airstrike on the capital Damascus, Syrian state media said on Tuesday citing a military source. Israel's military said it does not comment on foreign media reports.

(Edited by Georgi Gotev)