Middle East

Israel-Lebanon live updates: special forces ‘have crossed border’

Author: Editors Desk Source: The Sunday Times

September 30, 2024 at 08:48

Smoke rises from an Israeli airstrike on the southern Lebanese village of Khiam RABIH DAHER/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Reports of elite troops operating in Hezbollah tunnels as IDF airstrikes hit Beirut and tanks mass on the frontier

Israel has conducted special forces raids into southern Lebanon over the past months to gather intelligence ahead of a possible invasion. The operations have involved probing Hezbollah’s tunnel network along the border, the Wall Street Journal reported, as Israel continued to mass troops along the border on Monday.

Israel last invaded Lebanon in 2006, during a 34-day war with Hezbollah that was sparked by the militia conducting a cross-border raid into Israel. The war ended in a stalemate and the deaths of dozens of Israeli soldiers.

This time, however, Israel would be better prepared, having already decapitated the group’s leadership in a fortnight of airstrikes that have also destroyed a substantial amount of Hezbollah’s rocket arsenal.
The US and others have called on Israel to refrain from the operation, while Hezbollah insisted on Monday that it was prepared to fight soldiers crossing into Lebanon. The group is still reeling from the assassination of its leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an airstrike on Friday.