Calm remains precarious along the border with Israel on Lebanon’s southern border on the morning of Tuesday, October 10. Intermittent exchanges of artillery fire persisted throughout the night amid concerns over a new front being established on the southern border.
On the Israeli side, Tel Aviv’s army has dispatched reinforcements to its northern border, while neighboring settlements have been evacuated. Later during the morning, it warned the Kibbutz inhabitants at the border not to leave their homes for fear of infiltration by anti-Israeli fighters from Lebanon. The warning was issued when Israeli soldiers said they had detected an infiltration attempt on the south-eastern border with Lebanon.
On the Lebanese side, similar departures of civilians have been reported since Saturday. UNIFIL peacekeepers and the Lebanese army stepped up their patrols on Tuesday morning along the Blue Line, as Israeli fighter jets continued to fly over.
Monday’s bombings on both sides of the border between Israel and Hezbollah – which lost three of its fighters – were closely monitored in Lebanon and prompted Washington to issue a direct warning to Hezbollah.
“We are deeply concerned that Hezbollah will make the wrong decision and open a second front in this conflict,” which began on Saturday with a surprise and massive attack by the Palestinian Hamas launched from the Gaza Strip, the US spokesperson said.
The decision to deploy the USS Gerald Ford aircraft carrier strike group in the eastern Mediterranean shows armed groups, supported by Iran, such as Lebanese Hezbollah, that they should “not doubt the United States’ commitment in its support defending Israel,” the official said.
Hezbollah had announced that three of its fighters had been killed on Monday by Israeli strikes in the south and that it had bombed two Israeli army barracks in response. Israel had targeted this area after announcing that it had killed “several armed suspects” who had infiltrated its territory coming from southern Lebanon.
These infiltrations were claimed by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which said it was supporting Hamas in its offensive.
The last war between Hezbollah and Israel dates back to 2006 and resulted in over 1,200 deaths on the Lebanese side, mostly civilians, and 160 deaths on the Israeli side, mostly military personnel.
