Israel may have already begun small-scale cross-border incursions in preparation for a possible ground operation in Lebanon, according to a report on US television network ABC News citing two American officials.
The US officials stressed that Jerusalem appears to have not yet decided to send tanks and troops over the Blue Line to begin major activities to clear the area of Hezbollah terrorists so as to allow the return of more than 60,000 evacuated residents of northern Israel to their homes.
However, “border movements” into Lebanon to remove Hezbollah positions near the frontier may have begun or are about to start, the officials said.
American officials made similar remarks to CNN overnight on Saturday, with one telling the broadcaster that the American assessment was based on the mobilisation of Israel troops on the Lebanese border and the clearing of areas.
Any such operation will likely be limited in scope, the sources stressed to the American news networks, with the aim of fulfilling the war goal of safely bringing back internally displaced citizens after nearly a year of constant rocket, missile and drone attacks by Hezbollah’s Iranian-back terrorist army in support of Hamas in Gaza.
Earlier on Saturday, IDF spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel (reserve) Peter Lerner said that the army was preparing for a possible ground incursion as an option under consideration.
Late on Saturday, Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant held an “operational situation assessment regarding the expansion of IDF activities in the northern arena,” according to his office.
IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi announced on Sept. 25 that the military was preparing a possible ground operation in Lebanon to remove the threat posed by Hezbollah.
“You can hear the planes above us; we are attacking all day. Both to prepare the area for the possibility of your entry [into Lebanon], and also to continue harming Hezbollah,” Halevi told troops during a drill.
“To achieve the goal of safely returning residents to their abandoned homes in the north, we are preparing the [ground] manoeuvre,” the general said.
In another sign that Israel is preparing for a possible escalation with Hezbollah in Lebanon, the 98th Paratroopers Division recently moved from the Gaza Strip to the northern front.
The 98th Division joined the 36th Armoured Division under the Northern Command after months of fighting Hamas terrorists in Gaza under the Southern Command.
US President Joe Biden said that that the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah by an Israeli airstrike was “a measure of justice for his many victims, including thousands of Americans, Israelis, and Lebanese civilians.”
Asked by reporters on Saturday in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, about a possible Israeli ground offensive in Southern Lebanon, Biden said, “It’s time for a ceasefire.”
A US official told news site Axios on Saturday, a day after Nasrallah’s killing, that avoiding an Israeli ground incursion is now the Biden administration’s top priority, as well as preventing direct Iranian involvement and reaching a diplomatic resolution that returns residents to their homes in northern Israel and Southern Lebanon.
Israeli fighter jets bombed Hezbollah’s headquarters in Dahiyeh, in the Beirut’s southern suburbs, killing Nasrallah and other senior terrorists, including Ali Karaki, the commander of Hezbollah’s Southern Front, and Iranian Revolutionary Guards deputy commander Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan.
The Iranian general was reportedly the IRGC’s regional replacement for Mohammad Reza Zahedi, who was killed in an Israeli attack in Damascus in April, prompting Tehran’s first-ever direct offensive against Israel, in which some 300 missiles and drones were fired at the Jewish state, with nearly all intercepted and one person wounded.
