The IDF has confirmed that is has begun a “targeted ground operation” in southern Lebanon following a renewal of Hezbollah rocket strikes.
Units from the 91st “Galilee” Regional Division kicked off the operation with a nighttime raid on Saturday, while the 146th Reserve and 36th divisions remain stationed in the south-west.
The military has also called up 450,000 extra reservists to assist with the operation in the coming weeks.
"This operation is part of the effort to establish forward defence, including the destruction of terror infrastructure and the elimination of terrorists operating in the area, to remove threats and create an additional layer of security for residents of the north,” said an army spokesman.
While the brunt of US and Israeli strikes has been focused on Iran, Israel has been fighting on a second front after the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror group launched rocket attacks on northern Israel.
In particular, the IDF is said to have been surprised by a volley of 200 rockets last Thursday, which resulted in two injuries.
Israeli troops were already stationed in several parts of southern Lebanon after a delay to a planned withdrawal agreed under a 2024 ceasefire, which the IDF said could not be completed due to slow deployment by Lebanese forces against Hezbollah.
Since the beginning of the Iran War, though, the IDF has pushed deeper into Lebanon and launched airstrikes on Hezbollah's strongholds in south Beirut.
Defence Minister Israel Katz said last week that, if Lebanon did not take sufficient action against Hezbollah, Israel would "take the territory and do it ourselves".
And, according to Axios, IDF officials are preparing to do just that, potentially occupying the territory all the way up to the Litani River, traditionally Hezbollah's key power base.
"We are going to do what we did in Gaza," one Israeli official reportedly told the outlet, with another suggesting that there was "no way back from a massive operation".
According to the latest IDF estimates, between 85 and 90 per cent of the terror group's rocket arsenal has been destroyed.
All the while, patience with Hezbollah appears to be running out in Beirut, with President Joseph Aoun's government taking the unprecedented step this month of declaring all of the group's military operations illegal.
Aoun has also accused the group of trying to drag Lebanon into a war with Israel and turn it into a "second Gaza".
Direct talks between Beirut and Jerusalem were reported to be set for the coming days, according to Haaretz, potentially signalling a momentum shift towards a negotiated settlement.
However, Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, denied the reports on Sunday, saying: “If the Lebanese government and the Lebanese army want to change something, they should do something in order to stop the attacks being done by Hezbollah from Lebanese territory.
"Until now, they hadn’t done anything significant in order to stop” Hezbollah’s attacks.”
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