As troops mass, Hezbollah says it's ready for any Israeli invasion of Lebanon

BEIRUT − Hezbollah fighters are primed to confront any Israeli ground invasion of Lebanon, the group's deputy leader, Naim Qassem, said on Monday in his first public remarks since Israeli airstrikes killed its veteran chief Hassan Nasrallah last week.

"We will face any possibility and we are ready if the Israelis decide to enter by land, and the resistance forces are ready for a ground engagement," he said in an address from an undisclosed location.

He was speaking as Israeli airstrikes on targets in Beirut and elsewhere in Lebanon continued, extending a two-week-long wave of attacks that has eliminated several Hezbollah commanders but also killed about 1,000 Lebanese and forced 1 million people to flee their homes, according to the Lebanese government.

Nasrallah's killing , along with the series of blows against the organization's communications devices and assassination of other senior commanders, constitute the biggest blow to the organization since Iran created it in 1982 to fight Israel.

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He had built it up into Lebanon's most powerful military and political force, with wide sway across the Middle East.

Now Hezbollah faces the challenge of replacing a charismatic, towering leader who was a hero to supporters because he stood up to Israel even though the West branded him a terrorist mastermind.

"We will choose a secretary-general for the party at the earliest opportunity ... and we will fill the leadership and positions on a permanent basis," Qassem said.

Qassem said Hezbollah's fighters had continued to fire rockets as deep as 93 miles into Israeli territory.

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"What we are doing is the bare minimum. ... We know that the battle may be long," he said. "We will win as we won in the liberation of 2006 in the face of the Israeli enemy," he added, referring to the last big conflict between the two foes.

Israel says it will do whatever it takes to return its citizens to evacuated communities on its northern border safely.

It has not ruled out a ground invasion, and its troops have been training for it.

“The elimination of Nasrallah is an important step, but it is not the final one. In order to ensure the return of Israel’s northern communities, we will employ all of our capabilities, and this includes you," Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told troops deployed to the country's northern border.

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Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said Monday that his government was ready to fully implement a U.N. resolution that had aimed to end Hezbollah's armed presence south of the Litani River as part of an agreement to stop the war with Israel.

Mikati said the Lebanese army could deploy south of the river, which lies less than 20 miles from the country's southern border.

Other militants hit

Hours before Hezbollah's Qassem spoke, the Palestinian militant group Hamas said an Israeli airstrike killed its leader in Lebanon, Fateh Sherif Abu el-Amin, along with his wife, son and daughter, in the southern city of Tyre.

Another Palestinian organisation said three of its leaders died in a strike in central Beirut, the first such hit inside the capital's limits. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said its leaders were killed in a strike on Beirut's Kola district.

Reuters witnesses said the strike hit the upper floor of an apartment building. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

The wave of Israeli attacks on militant targets in Lebanon are part of a conflict also stretching from the Palestinian territories of Gaza and the occupied West Bank , to Yemen, Iraq and within Israel itself.

Multiple fronts

The latest actions indicated Israel has no intention of slowing down its offensive even after eliminating Nasrallah, who was Iran's most powerful ally in its "Axis of Resistance" against Israeli and U.S. influence in the region.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said Tehran would not let any of Israel's "criminal acts" go unanswered. He was referring to the killing of Nasrallah and an Iranian Revolutionary Guard deputy commander, Brig. Gen. Abbas Nilforoushan, who died in the same strikes Friday.

Russia said Nasrallah's death had led to a serious destabilisation in the broader region.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the bombing of residential areas in Lebanon had caused heavy casualties and would create a humanitarian catastrophe akin to the one in Gaza, where tens of thousands of people have died in the war between Israel and Hezbollah's ally Hamas.

The death toll from an Israeli strike on the southern Lebanese town of Ain Deleb has risen to 45, Lebanon's health ministry said Monday.

Twelve people were killed and 20 wounded in an Israeli strike on the northeastern town of Hermel, it said. Six medics were killed in an Israeli strike on the Bekaa town of Sohmor.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: As troops mass, Hezbollah says it's ready for any Israeli invasion of Lebanon