Israel Plans Raids Into Lebanon as US Warns Against Big Invasion

Israel closed off areas along its border with Lebanon in preparation for what appears to be an imminent ground attack against Hezbollah, defying a growing international chorus calling for restraint.
The expected strikes would further expand the campaign against the Iran-backed group following Israel’s killing of its leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday, even as the US, the European Union and Arab powers call for a cease-fire. Israel has shifted its focus to Lebanon with its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip at a standstill.
Washington expects Israel to launch a limited ground incursion into Lebanon but said it has cautioned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government against a larger and longer-term operation that risks a direct confrontation with Tehran, according to a US official with knowledge of the situation, who asked not to be identified discussing strategy.
Israel over the past week has pounded Lebanon with massive airstrikes. On Monday, after hitting the center of Beirut, Israel signaled it’s ready to send more ground forces into southern Lebanon, including tank units, following small-scale commando operations over the border in recent months. 
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told tank crews deployed along the border Monday that the killing of Nasrallah wasn’t the final step in the fight against Hezbollah and that “we will employ all the capabilities at our disposal.” 
The Israel Defense Forces also declared three areas in northern Israel — Metula, Misgav Am and Kfar Giladi — as “closed military zones,” another sign of a potential operation. Meanwhile, Lebanon’s state news agency NNA reported Israeli artillery shelling across the border.
Netanyahu has said the goal of crushing Hezbollah is to end rocket attacks by the Iran-backed group that forced tens of thousands of Israelis from their homes in northern Israel. A similar exodus has been seen in southern Lebanon amid Israel’s retaliation. 
While most of Hezbollah’s senior leadership has been killed and much of its arsenal destroyed, Israeli officials say it retains substantial capability to inflict losses on Israeli forces and fire missiles across the border.
Nasrallah’s deputy, Naim Qassem, said on Monday that the group remains ready to fight on the ground. 
Moshe Davidovich, a representative of Israeli communities on the western end of the border region with Lebanon, said he had attended a meeting where Gallant vowed to remove any threat from Hezbollah six miles miles from the border.
“We received a promise that the IDF would do everything required in order to clean out all of the terrorist nests that threaten the State of Israel’s northern border, our evacuated communities,” Davidovich told Channel 12. 
The US official, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations, said the Biden administration is worried the Israeli military may overreach. 
Asked Monday morning whether the White House was aware of a possible Israeli incursion, President Joe Biden called again for a halt to the fighting.
“I’m more aware than you might know and I’m comfortable with them stopping,” Biden said. “We should have a cease-fire now.”
The Biden administration has failed several times to limit and shape Israel’s military response since Oct. 7, when Hamas in Gaza killed about 1,200 people and kidnapped more than 200 in southern Israel. Hezbollah began its rocket attacks the next day and has vowed to continue until Israel ends the campaign in Gaza, which has left more than 40,000 people dead according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry. 
Both Hezbollah and Hamas are backed by Iran, which Netanyahu has said is Israel’s biggest threat. 
US officials had earlier warned Israel against a full-scale invasion in Gaza and at one point in the war withheld a shipment of 2,000-pound bombs over concerns about their use on civilians. Israel’s military also later seized the Rafah border crossing with Egypt and eventually stationed troops all along the Egypt-Gaza border, moves that complicated the cease-fire that the administration has been seeking. 
“We do not want to see civilian infrastructure targeted” in Lebanon, US State Department spokesman Matt Miller said Monday in Washington, adding that Hezbollah targets or the group’s infrastructure are legitimate. 
Meanwhile, the US is deploying a “few thousand” more troops to the Middle East to bolster its defence of Israel and deter an Iranian response, the Pentagon said. 
The additional forces are mostly made up of fighter-jet squadrons and units in the region that will stay longer than originally planned, Pentagon deputy spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters. On Sunday, the Pentagon announced defensive air-support in the region would be reinforced in the coming days.
With assistance from Josh Wingrove, Iain Marlow, Galit Altstein and Sherif Tarek.
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