Israel-Lebanon latest: Fierce fighting as Israeli troops begin invasion and Hezbollah missiles target Tel Aviv

A suspected attack Tuesday by Yemen’s Houthi rebels targeted a ship in the Red Sea, likely marking their first assault on commercial shipping in weeks as the Israel-Hamas war threatens to become a regional conflict.

The attack comes as Israeli ground forces entered Lebanon after days of Israeli airstrikes that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and other top leaders and the earlier explosions of sabotaged electronic devices used by the Shiite militia.

The Houthis had threatened “escalating military operations” targeting Israel on Monday after they apparently shot down a US military drone flying over the country.

The attack Tuesday morning took place some 110km off the port city of Hodeida in the Red Sea, which has become a battlefield for shippers since the Houthis began their campaign targeting ships traveling through a waterway that once saw $1 trillion a year of cargo pass through it.

A captain on a ship saw four “splashes” near his vessel, the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said in a warning.

That likely would have been missiles or drones launched at the vessel.“All crew are safe and the vessel is proceeding to (its) next port of call,” the UKMTO said.The Houthis did not immediately claim the attack.

The UK government has chartered a flight out of Lebanon for Britons wanting to leave as Israel said it had begun a limited, localised” operation in the southern part of the country.

Foreign secretary David Lammy described the situation in Lebanon as “volatile” and with the “potential to deteriorate quickly” as the flight, due to leave Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport on Wednesday, was confirmed.

Earlier, Mr Lammy reiterated calls for Britons in Lebanon to leave and said the government will do “all that we can” to assist people in fleeing.

Hours after Mr Lammy’s announcement, the Israeli military said it had begun a “limited, localised” operation against its Hezbollah targets in the region.

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A missile attack has targeted a US military facility near the Baghdad airport, two Iraqi security officials said.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak publicly, said one rocket fell in an adjacent area used by Iraqi security forces and damaged vehicles parked there.

No casualties were reported in the attack early on Tuesday. Air traffic was halted as a result of the strike.US officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment and no group claimed responsibility.

Iran-backed Iraqi militias have regularly targeted bases housing US troops in Iraq over the past year, which they have said is a response to Washington’s support for Israel in its war against Hamas and Hezbollah in Gaza and Lebanon.

US defence secretary Lloyd Austin told Israel’s defence minister that he agreed on the need for a ground offensive inside Lebanon to rid the border area of Hezbollah weapons and other means it can use to carry out attacks across the frontier.

Mr Austin told Yoav Gallant in a call that the US supports Israel’s right to defend itself and discussed Israel’s military operations.

Israeli ground forces moved into southern Lebanon overnight, marking a significant escalation of an offensive against Hezbollah.

The Israeli military said on Tuesday it has begun a “limited” ground operation against Hezbollah targets it said posed an “immediate threat” to northern Israeli communities.

“We agreed on the necessity of dismantling attack infrastructure along the border,” Mr Austin said in a statement posted on the X social platform.

The White House and the US State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Israel’s ground operations in Lebanon. But on Monday, US president Joe Biden had called for a ceasefire.

“I’m more worried than you might know and I’m comfortable with them stopping,” Mr 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.

Hezbollah’s deputy leader Naim Qassem, in a first public speech on Monday since Hassan Nasrallah’s death, said that “the resistance forces are ready for a ground engagement” with Israel.

He said Hezbollah had continued to fire rockets as deep as 150km into Israeli territory.

“We know that the battle may be long. We will win as we won in the liberation of 2006,” he said, referring to the last big conflict between the two foes.

Late on Monday, Lebanese troops pulled back about 5km from positions along Lebanon’s southern border with Israel, a Lebanese security source told Reuters. A Lebanese army spokesperson did not confirm or deny the movement.

Lebanon’s army has historically stayed on the sidelines of major conflicts with Israel, and in the last year of hostilities has not fired on the Israeli military.

At least 95 people have been killed and 172 wounded in Israeli strikes on Lebanon’s southern regions, the eastern Bekaa Valley, and Beirut in the last 24 hours, Lebanon’s health ministry said early on Tuesday.

Israel’s ground invasion into Lebanon follows its deadly detonation of booby-trapped Hezbollah pagers, two weeks of airstrikes, and its killing on Friday of Hezbollah head Hassan Nasrallah, which dealt the group one of the heaviest blows in decades.

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.

Overnight, strikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs, a security source said. A Reuters reporter witnessed a flash of light and a series of loud blasts about an hour after the Israeli military warned residents to evacuate areas near buildings it said contained Hezbollah infrastructure south of the Lebanese capital.

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.

Israel has been carrying out strikes against Iran-linked targets in Syria for years but has ramped up raids since the Hamas attack on Israel’s southern territory on 7 October 2023.

Hamas killed 1,200 people and took about 250 hostage in its assault on Israel, according to Israeli tallies. Israel in response launched a massive assault on Hamas in Gaza, reducing most of the Palestinian territory to rubble, displacing most of its 2.3 million people and killing more than 41,300 Palestinians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

An Israeli strike in Lebanon early on Tuesday targeted Mounir Maqdah, 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, Lebanon’s largest Palestinian camp, since cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel broke out nearly a year ago.