Middle East crisis: Israeli troops reportedly reach deepest point in Lebanon since invasion

Israeli ground forces have reached their deepest point in Lebanon since they invaded six weeks ago, before pulling back after fierce battles with Hizbullah militants, Lebanese state media reported.
Israeli troops captured a strategic hill in the southern Lebanese village of Chamaa, about three miles (4.8km) from the Israeli border, early on Saturday, the state-run National News Agency reported. It said Israeli troops were later pushed back from the hill.
The agency added that Israeli troops blew up the Shrine of Shimon the Prophet in Chamaa as well as several homes before they withdrew, but the claim could not be verified, AP said.
Israel’s military said its troops “continue their limited, localised and targeted operational activity in southern Lebanon”.
Another air strike hit the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital Beirut around midday local time, according to AFP, after the area was hit this morning. Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported a raid by “enemy aircraft” in the neighbourhood of Chiyah.
Earlier, an Israeli strike hit the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital Beirut this morning, shortly after the Israeli army issued a new call to evacuate the area.
Since Tuesday, Israel has carried out several strikes on the city’s southern suburbs, a stronghold of Hizbullah.
Shortly before the attack, an Israeli military spokesman posted on X a call for residents of the Haret Hreik suburb to evacuate. “You are close to facilities and interests belonging to Hizbullah, against which the Israeli military will be acting with force in the near future,” the post said in Arabic, identifying specific buildings and telling residents to move at least 500 metres away.
Repeated Israeli air strikes on south Beirut have led to a mass exodus of civilians from the area, although some return during the day to check on their homes and businesses.
Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister has asked Iran to help secure a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hizbullah and appeared to urge it to convince the militant group to agree to a deal that could require it to pull back from the Israel-Lebanon border.
The prime minister made the comments in talks with Ali Larijani, a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, AP reported.
Elsewhere, a senior Hamas official has said the Palestinian militant group is “ready for a ceasefire” in Gaza and urged US president-elect Donald Trump to “pressure” Israel to “end the aggression”.
“Hamas is ready to reach a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip if a ceasefire proposal is presented and on the condition that it is respected” by Israel, Hamas political bureau member Bassem Naim said.
A UN spokesperson said that aid access in Gaza is at a low point with deliveries to parts of the north of the territory all but impossible.
“From our perspective, on all indicators you can possibly think of in a humanitarian response, all of them are going in the wrong direction,” Jens Laerke told a press briefing. – Guardian