Israeli soldiers have entered Lebanon after the army announced a “limited” ground operation against Hezbollah.

    Israel launches more air strikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut, bombing several neighbourhoods after ordering residents to evacuate. Attacks on Lebanon killed at least 95 people on Monday, the country’s Health Ministry has said.

    An Israeli strike on the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip has killed at least 11 people, medics say.

    In Gaza, at least 41,615 people have been killed and 96,359 injured in Israeli attacks since October. In Israel, at least 1,139 people were killed in the Hamas-led attacks on October 7 and more than 200 people were taken captive.

    US defence chief says Iran will face ‘serious consequences’ if it attacks Israel

    In a call with his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant, the US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said Washington supported Israel in the “necessity of dismantling [Hezbollah] attack infrastructure along the border” with Lebanon in order to prevent “October 7-style attacks on Israel’s northern communities”.

    Austin also warned Iran of the consequences should it choose to fight with Washington’s key ally.

    “I reiterated the serious consequences for Iran in the event Iran chooses to launch a direct military attack against Israel,” he said.

    Austin also said the US military is “well-postured” to defend “US personnel, partners, and allies” in the region in the “face of threats from Iran and Iran-backed terrorist organisations”.

    Israeli military announces three rocket launches from Lebanon

    Israeli defence systems intercepted two rocket launches in the Upper Galilee region after crossing into northern Israel from southern Lebanon, while a third rocket fell into an open area in the Baram region.

    No injuries or damage have been reported.

    People ‘still under the rubble’ after Israel bombs Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon

by Ali Hashem, Reporting from Beirut, Lebanon

    The attack [was] on the Palestinian refugee camp in Ein al-Hilweh, which is just to the south of the city of Sidon, in south Lebanon.

    For now, there are reports of several casualties.

    It’s the most densely-populated refugee camp in Lebanon with more than 130,000 Palestinians living there. It’s described as the capital of Palestinian refugees and the attack, as we understand from witnesses there, has destroyed several buildings with many people under the rubble.

    Rescue teams are struggling to get inside because of the very narrow alleyways.

    This attack, according to reports from there, was targeting a Palestinian faction leader… but he survived, as per the sources there. We will need to follow up on this story to confirm he survived.

    But what we know now is there are several people killed, many are still under the rubble, and it comes in parallel with the attacks on Beirut’s southern suburbs, where around eight attacks [took place] and four buildings were flattened. There were also attacks in several areas in south Lebanon.

    We have several developments happening simultaneously with the Israeli ground operation or the invasion of Lebanon for the fourth time in 50 years.

    Israeli incursion to ‘probe’ Hezbollah strength to determine level of resistance: Analyst

    Omar Rahman, a fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, said Israel’s deployment of a limited number of special forces soldiers inside southern Lebanon “makes perfect sense” for the moment, and ahead of a possible full-scale ground invasion.

    “Obviously, Israel would be making a fatal mistake to send in, at the start, a massive ground invasion given what has happened in the past fighting Hezbollah,” Rahman told Al Jazeera, referring to Israel’s two earlier invasions of Lebanon in 1982 and 2006, which ended in withdrawal amid Hezbollah’s growing attacks.

    Israel’s ground operation is likely an attempt to measure the strength of remaining Hezbollah forces ahead of a larger offensive, Rahman said.

    “It’s bombarded the whole of the south. Now it is sending in these special forces, which are a sort of expeditionary force to probe and see the landscape, see the level of Hezbollah resistance that remains in light of both the bombardment and the confusion that must be existing within Hezbollah’s ranks as a result of the assassinations, the killing of Hassan Nasrallah and a lot of the senior leadership,” he said.

    Palestinian leader survives Israeli assassination attempt in Lebanon, son killed: Report

    Munir al-Maqdah has reportedly survived an Israeli military attack on his home in the Ein al-Hilweh refugee camp in the Lebanese city of Sidon earlier tonight, the Al Mayadeen news outlet reports, citing a Palestinian source.

    Al-Maqdah’s son, Hassan al-Maqdah, is reported to have been killed in the bombing, which has taken the lives of at least five people and injured several more.

    Al-Maqdah is a brigadier general with the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade in Lebanon, a coalition of Fatah-aligned Palestinian armed groups, according to reports.