Israel-Lebanon latest: Israel launches cross-border raids as US official says ground invasion may be imminent

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has said it is vital to avoid any further military interventions in Lebanon.

“Any further military intervention would dramatically aggravate the situation and it has to be avoided,” Borrell told reporters on Monday, speaking from Mexico after an emergency video conference of EU foreign ministers.

Israel warned Iran on Monday that nowhere in the Middle East was beyond its reach and hinted at a land invasion of Lebanon after assassinating the leader of the Tehran-backed Hezbollah group, one of its biggest adversaries, in a Beirut suburb last week.

The Israeli military declared the areas around the communities of Metula, Misgav Am, and Kfar Giladi in northern Israel near the border with Lebanon as a closed military zone and said entry to the areas was prohibited.

It said the decision, announced as speculation has grown of an imminent ground incursion into southern Lebanon, was taken following a situational assessment.

Israel has told the United States it is conducting limited ground operations focused on Hezbollah infrastructure in Lebanon near the border with Israel, the State Department said on Monday.

“This is what they have informed us that they are currently conducting, which are limited operations targeting Hezbollah infrastructure near the border,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters.

Asked to confirm they were limited ground operations, he said: “That is our understanding.”

Indications grew on Monday that Israel was on the verge of sending ground troops into Lebanon, two weeks into an assault on the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia that culminated in the assassination of its leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

A US official who spoke on condition of anonymity told Reuters the positioning of Israeli troops suggested a ground incursion could be imminent.

After two weeks of intensive airstrikes and a string of assassinations of Hezbollah commanders, Israel has suggested ever more strongly that a land invasion is looming.

The Israeli attacks on militant targets in Lebanon are part of a conflict stretching from the Palestinian territories of Gaza and the occupied West Bank to Iranian-backed groups in Yemen and Iraq. The escalation has raised fears that the United States and Iran will be sucked into the conflict.

Miller said that the United States continues to support a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah but added that military pressure can at times enable diplomacy. He cautioned that military pressure can also lead to miscalculation and unintended consequences.

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy has repeated calls for an immediate ceasefire amid reports of a potential escalation in the Israel-Lebanon conflict.

Speaking to broadcasters on Monday evening, Mr Lammy said that he had spoken to US secretary of state Antony Blinken and said they both agreed that “the best way forward is an immediate ceasefire and to get back to a political solution”.

Asked about advice he may have for Britons who are in Lebanon, he said: “We will do all that we can to assist people to get out and we have secured places on commercial flights that are flying tomorrow so that UK nationals can get out.

“I urge them to leave because the situation on the ground is fast moving.”

He added: “And of course, whilst we will do everything we can to protect British nationals – and those plans are in place to do so - we cannot anticipate the circumstances and the speed with which we could do that if things escalate in a major way over the coming hours and days.”

The US State Department has said “it is an unalloyed good” that the leader Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah “is no longer with us” after Israel killed him over the weekend.

John Kirby, spokesman for the US State Department, said on Monday: “It is an unalloyed good that he is no longer with us.”

The Lebanese Army was seen withdrawing from several positions on the southern border with Israel, local residents and a security source told Reuters.

A Lebanese army spokesperson did not confirm or deny the reports.

US President Joe Biden has called for a ceasefire in Lebanon as a US official said Israeli troop deployments suggested a ground incursion against Hezbollah militants could be imminent.

Asked about reports that Israeli ground troops were preparing to move into southern Lebanon, Biden told reporters on Monday that he was “comfortable with them [Israel] stopping”.

Several top aides reinforced Biden's call for a ceasefire by urging a diplomatic resolution to the violence to allow tens of thousands of displaced Israelis and Lebanese to return to their homes along the border.

Washington "will continue to work with our partners in the region and around the world to advance a diplomatic resolution," Secretary of State Antony Blinken told a State Department conference.

The streets are filled with people and cars in the neighbourhood of Hamra in Beirut, many having fled the southern parts of the country or the capital itself amid heavy Israeli bombardments since last week.

On Monday afternoon, an Israeli surveillance drone can be heard loudly above the neighbourhood, Cosette Moljin reports for The Independent from Beirut. Many pedestrians stop for a moment and look up to the sky, searching and occasionally spotting the little white plane.

Heba, who runs a small catering shop in the area, says the drone has been around all day. “We hear it all the time, going lower, then higher, then lower again. It is annoying, and it scares us, of course.” She said some residents of Hamra have yet again received phone calls containing supposed evacuation messages. The phone calls have been debunked earlier last week already as being fake, but despite that they incite confusion and panic among Lebanese.

Despite the large number of refugees in the area, Heba said there have been no problems so far. “Thank God! I think it's safe here, there is no Hezbollah here and I don't think Israel has anything to bomb here.”

She said she wishes the war would be over. “Every five or 10 years we have a war again. It never stops. Now my children cannot go to school because they closed. All they have is online class.”

Heba hopes people abroad understand that “Lebanon is not Hezbollah. There is many different people in this country. But we all want peace. They should just implement [the UN Resolution] 1701. Then they [Israel] can live their life there, and we can do the same here.”

Israel bombed a residential building in the Kola area of Beirut early on Monday morning. In its first strike beyond the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital, it killed four people, including three members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestina (PFLP) group.

Some hours after the attack in the Kola area, the streets surrounding the targeted, detached building are full of traffic again, Cosette Moljin reports for The Independent from Beirut.

Most of the apartments of the ten-story building are heavily damaged. With three of its four walls destroyed, the fifth floor that was targeted is left completely exposed. On the street lie ruins and what is left of furniture and personal belongings from the damaged apartments.

“Yes we were here, we saw everything this morning,” said Mahmoud Kalaf Salam, a Syrian drinking coffee with some other men on the opposite side of the viaduct the targeted building faces. “After the explosions, we saw rubble everywhere, there was fire, people wounded with schrapnel and debris all over their bodies. Everyone ran outside to see what happened.”

Aissa, another Syrian man, also saw the attack happen. He said he heard at least two missiles. “Now everyone around is scared. This is no area where Hezbollah has a presence. These neighbourhood are mainly Sunni, they're poor, but not Hezbollah. As you know, they attacked three Palestinians.” Under the bridge facing the targeted building, several homeless people sit on matrasses or the floor, some children not older than ten years old smoke cigarettes.

Then Aissa points at groups of people, families with children carrying bags crossing the streets. “Look, many Syrians are leaving Beirut. They're going to Tripoli [a northern coastal city in Lebanon] or even back to Syria,” he said. He himself does not want to return to Syria, where he originally came from over 30 years ago. “If I go there, I end up in prison or being killed. But here we're going to be in a war. Where should I go then? I either die in Lebanon or in the sea.”

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that the United Nations General Assembly should recommend the use of force, in line with a resolution it passed in 1950, if the UN Security Council fails to stop Israel's attacks in Gaza and Lebanon.

"The UN General Assembly should rapidly implement the authority to recommend the use of force, as it did with the 1950 Uniting for Peace resolution, if the Security Council can't show the necessary will," Erdogan said after a cabinet meeting in Ankara.

He also urged Muslim countries to take economic, diplomatic, and political steps against Israel to pressure it into accepting a ceasefire, and added Israel's attacks would target them too if it is not stopped soon.