Washington is said to be exerting significant pressure on Israel to refrain from a ground invasion of south Lebanon after more Israeli infantry units deployed on the northern border and planned for such a scenario.
Military analysts speculated that the army may opt for relatively limited incursions at a number of locations to push Hizbullah fighters away from the Israeli border communities.
Meanwhile, more details have emerged about Friday’s dramatic air strike on Hizbullah headquarters in Beirut which killed the group’s leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah. It is believed that at least ten fighter jets were involved in the precision strike, dropping 83 tons of explosives on the underground bunker, located beneath a six-storey residential building in the heart of the Dahiyeh quarter. Two senior Israeli-defence establishment officials told the New York Times that more than 80 bombs were dropped within minutes.
The Israeli military named more than 20 Hizbullah operatives who were also killed in the strike. General Abbas Nilforoushan, a senior commander in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was also killed in the attack, with Tehran vowing that the incident “will not go without a response”.
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Hizbullah released footage on Sunday of Nasrallah’s body being extracted from the rubble. The body had no direct wounds and it appears that he was killed from the force of the blast. His burial is expected to take place on Monday.
More than 1,000 people have been killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon since Monday, including many civilians despite Israel saying all its attacks are targeting Hizbullah fighters and militant targets.
[ Israel’s assassination of Hizbullah leader is an alarming escalation in conflictOpens in new window ]
Lebanon is now pushing with urgency for a ceasefire to stop further destruction in the country. Caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati said in a speech on Sunday that his country had “no option but the diplomatic option”.
More than 800,000 Lebanese have now fled their homes. The United Nations World Food Programme announced it has initiated an emergency operation to deliver aid packages to some million people in Lebanon in response to the escalation.
Dozens of Israeli jets also targeted Yemen on Sunday evening, for the second time since the start of the Gaza war, almost a year ago. Power plants in Hodeidah controlled by the Houthis and the seaport of Ras Issa were hit, causing huge explosions with plumes of smoke rising into the sky. The Israeli military said the port is used by the Houthis to import oil and for the transfer of Iranian weapons and military supplies.
The attack came after the Iranian-backed Houthis launched three ballistic missiles at Israel this month. On Saturday, sirens were activated in Tel Aviv and many areas across the central Israel following a missile launch from Yemen.
Following the attack on Yemen Israel’s defence minister Yoav Gallant issued a statement: “The message is clear, for us, no place is too far.”
Houthi representatives reacted to Sunday’s strikes vowing to continue their attacks on Israel in solidarity with Gaza and Lebanon.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby warned on Sunday that Israel will not be able to safely get people back into their homes in the north of the country by waging an all-out war with Hizbullah or Iran. He also told CNN that the United States was continuing to talk to Israel about what the right next steps in Lebanon were.
Meanwhile, amid fears of a wider regional war, Washington has increased the readiness of additional US forces to deploy to the Middle East and has raised their preparedness levels, said the Pentagon, and in addition the US will reinforce “defensive air support capabilities” in the coming days.
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