(JNS) Israel Defense Forces troops have been authorized to advance and take control of additional commanding areas in Lebanon to prevent fire against Israeli border communities, Defense Minister Israel Katz announced on Tuesday morning.
“We promised security for the Galilee communities, and that is what we will deliver,” Katz said.
The IDF’s Arabic channel later on Tuesday published evacuation warnings for villages and towns in Southern Lebanon ahead of Israeli military activity.
Jerusalem is bolstering ground forces operating at strategic points inside Southern Lebanon near the border and striking Hezbollah targets as part of an expanded defensive posture after the Iranian terror proxy attacked Israeli territory, marking a sharp escalation in hostilities amid the broader war with Tehran.
The IDF said on Tuesday morning that Division 91 forces were operating in Southern Lebanon and were holding several positions in the border area “as part of an enhanced forward defense posture,” conducted in parallel with “Operation Roaring Lion,” the joint US-Israeli strikes on the Iranian regime that began on Saturday.
“The IDF is working to create an additional layer of security for residents of northern Israel. The IDF is conducting targeted strikes against Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure in order to remove threats and prevent infiltration attempts into Israeli territory,” the military said.
IDF International Spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani told reporters that “We’re only at the borderline area in a defensive manner to prevent attacks against civilians and very strategic, important points,” according to Reuters.
The Lebanese army has pulled back from at least seven forward positions along the border with Israel, an eyewitness told Reuters.
The IDF has kept a continuous presence at five designated strategic high points just north of the Blue Line since the November 2024 ceasefire with Hezbollah.
Hezbollah launched rockets and sent explosive drones at northern Israel from Lebanon late Sunday into Tuesday, setting off waves of air-raid sirens but causing no major casualties as Israeli air defenses and shelters limited the impact, according to Israeli authorities.
The Tehran-backed terror army confirmed that it had targeted the Jewish state, saying the assault had been “revenge for the blood of the supreme leader of the Muslims, Ali Khamenei,” Iran’s supreme leader, who was slain on Saturday in the opening strike of the Israeli-US military campaign against the Islamic Republic.
“The Hezbollah terrorist organization chose to attack Israel on behalf of the Iranian regime, and it will bear the consequences of its actions. The IDF will not allow harm to Israeli civilians, and will continue to act to defend the State of Israel and its citizens,” according to the IDF’s Tuesday morning statement.
Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad terror chiefs killed
The IDF announced early Tuesday that the Israeli Air Force had “begun targeted strikes against military objectives of the Iranian terror regime and the Hezbollah terrorist organization.”
A short while later, the military said it had completed a wave of strikes on command centers, weapons storage facilities and satellite communication components belonging to Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters in Beirut, emphasizing that the sites, operating under civilian cover, were used for attacks, intelligence gathering and propaganda. Hours earlier, the IDF said that it was striking “Hezbollah command centers and weapons storage facilities in Beirut.”
Israel’s naval forces on Monday eliminated Reza Khuza’i , the head of Hezbollah’s weapons build-up and the chief of staff of the Lebanon Corps in the Iranian Quds Force, the IDF announced on Tuesday morning, saying the Navy “conducted an intelligence-based strike in the area of Beirut.”
The IDF said Khuza’i was the right-hand man to Hezbollah’s Lebanon Corps commander and a central figure in building up the group’s military power, serving as a key liaison with Iran to align arms supplies with Hezbollah’s needs.
He helped rebuild and expand the organization’s forces after Operation “Northern Arrow,” overseeing weapons procurement, local production and broader capability-building plans. The military also accused him of playing a major role in smuggling arms from Iran into Lebanon and directing Hezbollah weapons manufacturing inside the country.
In a separate move targeting Hezbollah’s financial network, the IDF said it had completed a wave of strikes across Lebanon against branches of the Al-Qard al-Hasan Association, which operates as a key civilian financial institution but is used by the terror group as a quasi-bank to store money, manage salaries for its operatives, transfer funds from Iran and purchase weapons.
The military accused Hezbollah of exploiting Lebanon’s financial and humanitarian crisis by leveraging the association’s civilian facade to deepen the population’s dependence and shore up its military presence.
The Israeli military said on Monday night that it killed the commander of Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s Lebanon sector in a strike near Beirut, describing the operation as a major blow to the Iran-backed terror group’s capabilities.
Abu Hamza Rami, who had overseen the organization’s activities in Lebanon for several years, was accused of orchestrating hundreds of attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians, including training elite Nukhba operatives, recruiting terrorists and securing weapons.
The IDF said Rami also directed PIJ movements along the Syria-Lebanon border during Operation “Northern Arrows” and that his death would severely degrade the group’s ability to launch further attacks, vowing to continue operations to thwart threats to Israel.
160 targets hit in Lebanon so far
Israeli forces struck more than 160 Hezbollah terror targets in Lebanon over the past 24 hours, the IDF said on Tuesday afternoon, including military command centers “used to advance numerous terror attacks toward the State of Israel,” as well as members of the Radwan Force.
Hezbollah’s Radwan Force is an elite special-operations unit trained and equipped to cross into Israel, carry out raids and try to capture communities in the Galilee.
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