An airstrike hit a residential building in Lebanon

The Houthis, the largest military group in Yemen, and Israel’s war with the Hezbollah (Nambu) rebels

The Houthis launched a ballistic missile attack toward Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Saturday when Netanyahu was arriving. The Houthi media office said the Israeli strikes hit the Hodeida and Rass Issa ports, along with two power plants in Hodeida city, a stronghold for the Iranian-backed rebels. The Health Ministry said the strikes killed four people and injured 40 others.

On Saturday, the Houthis, the main military group in Yemen, launched a ballistic missile toward central Israel, saying it was targeting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s airplane returning from addressing the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

And now Israel says it is running a “limited” incursion of “targeted ground raids” in southern Lebanon aimed at Hezbollah militants that pose a threat to communities in northern Israel. Israeli authorities say about 63,000 Israelis remain displaced from the border area with Lebanon due to Hezbollah rocket fire.

The charred remnants from Friday’s strike that killed Nasrallah were still smoldering. Smoke rose over the rubble as people flocked to the site, some to check on what was left of their homes and others to pay respects, pray or simply to see the destruction.

Airstrikes and the War in the Middle East: The Case of Hezbollah, the United States, and the United Nations

President Joe Biden plans to talk to Benjamin Netanyahu soon and he believes that there must be no war in the Middle East. “It has to be,” Biden told reporters at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware as he boarded Air Force One for Washington.

The AP verified that a building swayed as neighbors filmed a strike in Sidon. One TV station called on viewers to pray for a family caught under the rubble, posting their pictures, as rescuers failed to reach them. The Lebanese Health Ministry reported at least 14 medics were killed over two days in the south.

The Lebanese Health Ministry said at least 105 people were killed around the country in airstrikes Sunday. Two strikes near the southern city of Sidon, about 45 kilometers (28 miles) south of Beirut, killed at least 32 people, the ministry said. In the northern province of Baalbek Hermel, at least 21 people were killed and 47 were wounded by Israeli strikes.

An official with Lebanon’s Civil Defense had earlier said that a member of the al-Jamaa al-Islamiya was killed in the strike and that 16 other people were wounded, but the Sunni militant group, which fights alongside Hezbollah, has not confirmed the death of any of its members.

The Israeli military has closed off the area of three Israeli towns near the border with southeast Lebanon. Israeli authorities say about 63,000 Israelis remain displaced from the border area with Lebanon due to Hezbollah rocket fire, and the U.N. says about one million Lebanese have been displaced from their homes fleeing Israeli airstrikes.

Kaouk was a Hezbollah member who served as Hezbollah’s military commander in southern Lebanon during the 2006 war with Israel. The United States announced sanctions against him in 2020.

Hezbollah, a militant group in Lebanon, rose to prominence in the region after fighting a war against Israel in 2006 in which there was a draw.

The Jordan Crisis: How Israel and Hezbollah are dealing with the Palestinians, and how the United States is considering a possible ground incursion

Hundreds of thousands of people have been driven from their homes. The government estimates around 250,000 are in shelters, with three to four times as many staying with friends or relatives, or camping out on the streets.

Kirby dodged the question of whether the Biden administration agrees with the Israelis on how they are hitting Hezbollah leaders. The White House continues to call on Israel and Hezbollah to agree to a 21-day temporary cease-fire floated by the U.S., France and other countries during the U.N. General Assembly last week.

Kirby thinks that people are better off without Nasrallah. They will attempt to recover. We watch to see if they fill the leadership vacuum. It’s going to be tough. The command structure of their organization has been rendered useless.

John Kirby, the White House national security spokesman, said the Hezbollah command structure had been destroyed by Israel’s airstrikes in Lebanon, but that the group will rebuild it quickly.

Also early Monday, another strike killed a commander with the militant group Hamas, which has a presence in Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps. The Al-Buss Refugee camp in the southern port city of Tyre was the scene of an airstrike that Hamas claimed resulted in the deaths of a family.

Three people in Lebanon were killed in an airstrike. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said in a statement that two of its commanders in Lebanon were killed in the attack.

JERUSALEM — The first apparent Israeli airstrike on central Beirut in nearly a year of conflict leveled an apartment building early Monday. It came after Israel hit targets across Lebanon and killed dozens of people, as Hezbollah sustained heavy blows to its command structure, including the killing of its leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

A senior U.S official told NPR that Israel may send more forces into southern Lebanon after it conducted a raid inside there.

“Everything is on the table,” the official in the region said about a possibility of a ground incursion. The U.S. official and the official in the Middle East spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the operation.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin: “The U.S. is ready for a ground engagement” in Syria, Iraq, Syria and the Middle East

According to an interview on Israeli Army Radio, the former head of Israel’s military intelligence told them that Hezbollah had been knocked off balance by Israel’s airstrikes.

On Monday, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with Israel’s defense minister about the “serious consequences for Iran” if it launched a strike against Israel. Iran-backed groups are threatening U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria, which the US is concerned about. Defense secretary Austin said the U.S. supports Israel dismantling Hezbollah infrastructure along the Lebanon Israel border so Hezbollah cannot threaten Israeli border towns. He wanted Israel to shift to diplomacy.

A White House official told NPR that the U.S. supports the incursion but that it is not in agreement with Israel’s actions. The Israeli ambassador to the U.S. told public radio that the U.S. has not restricted the duration of Israel’s incursion but is concerned about a regional escalation.

Netanyahu landed in Israel shortly before air raid sirens wailed at the airport and throughout central Israel. The Israeli military said it intercepted the missile midair.

Israeli security analysts said Israel’s bombing campaign in Yemen was a message to Iran, showing Israel’s long-range flight capability as a tacit warning to Iran that it, too, was within Israel’s reach.

The army of Lebanon returned to their positions at the southern border after being bombarded by Israeli forces. The official, who requested that he not be identified because he was not authorized to speak publically, told NPR that this was a reorganization from forward positions vulnerable to an Israeli incursion.

On Monday, Hezbollah’s deputy leader, Naim Kassem, said in a televised address that “the resistance forces are ready for a ground engagement.” Despite the Israeli attacks on Hezbollah, that was still going on.

Violence can’t stop violence. There are diplomatic efforts needed to stop the violence. “We don’t want Lebanon to also turn into another Gaza.”

“This is not an incursion, this is an invasion,” Najat Aoun Saliba, a Lebanese member of parliament, told NPR. “We’ve been invaded by another country and we have to call on the international community to call it as such.”

The conflict entered a new phase over the weekend after Israel killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Lebanese Prime Minister Riza urges the UN to intervene immediately to end violence and ensure protection in the most dangerous phase of the country’s history

“As violence escalates, we call on the global community to provide this much needed support and to ensure protection of civilians,” Riza said. “Without sufficient resources, humanitarians risk leaving the population of an entire country without the support they urgently require.”

The prime minister of Lebanon urged the UN to provide emergency funding for civilians affected by the conflict, warning that the country was facing the most dangerous phase of its history.

Lebanese politicians urgently called on the international community to pressure Israel to stop its advance into Lebanese territory on Tuesday, as Israeli troops crossed into southern Lebanon in an operation targeting Hezbollah outposts.