Israel-Hamas war: What happened on day 360?

Hezbollah issued a statement early on Tuesday saying it targeted Israeli troop movements across from Lebanese border towns.

The ministers of Israel's political-security cabinet officially approved the next phase of the operation in Lebanon during their Monday night meeting, Israeli media reported.

Following a situational assessment, the areas of Metula, Misgav Am, and Kfar Giladi in northern Israel were declared a closed military zone, the IDF said on Monday evening. The statement also said that entry to this area is prohibited.  

The Lebanese Army was seen withdrawing from several positions on the southern border with Israel, local residents and a security source told Reuters. 

Lebanese security sources said that the troops pulled back to at least five kilometers north of the border between Israel and Lebanon. 

However, an additional source from the Lebanese Army refuted this statement, noting that the military had redeployed forces in southern Lebanon following Israeli threats of ground invasion, Israel's Army Radio reported on Monday evening. 

Hezbollah has not asked for any help from Iran as "they are on our side", the Lebanese group's lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah told local broadcaster Al Jadeed on Monday.
 

The chief of the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) on Monday denied knowing that its employee Fateh Sherif Abu el-Amin was a Hamas commander in Lebanon and called on states to push back against Israeli attacks on the agency.

El-Amin, the head of Hamas' Lebanon branch, was killed along with family members in an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon, the group said on Monday. He had been placed under investigation and suspended from his job at UNRWA in March following allegations concerning his politics, agency head Philippe Lazzarini told reporters in Geneva.

"The specific allegation at the time was that (he was) a part of the local leadership... I never heard the word commander before," he said. "What's obvious for you today, was not obvious yesterday."

Following a security assessment, the Home Front Command issued new directives to northern communities.

The directives were given to communities north of the Hula Valley and included limiting movements in towns, avoiding large gatherings, controlling gates of settlements, and remaining near protected areas. 

President Joe Biden called on the IDF not to launch a ground campaign into southern Lebanon to route out the Iranian proxy group Hezbollah as tensions appeared to escalate between the two staunch allies over the pending operation which the security cabinet approved Monday night.

“We should have a ceasefire now,” Biden said during a press event at the White House. 

A reporter quizzed him about whether he knew of and was comfortable with Israeli plans to enter Lebanon.

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 speech since Israeli airstrikes killed its veteran chief Hassan Nasrallah last week.

Israel will not achieve its goals, he said.

"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.

If the IDF invades Lebanon in the near future, as expected, the military hopes to be better prepared for Hezbollah’s advantages and ambushes that it used effectively against the IDF during the Second Lebanon War in 2006.

It is expected that the IDF’s methods of maneuvering will be influenced by a number of factors. It wants to remove Hezbollah’s remaining Radwan Forces infrastructure, set up to invade Israel. However, it also wants to avoid real-time threats from anti-tank missiles, drones, and rockets.

Anti-tank missiles and rockets hit IDF soldiers particularly hard in 2006, and that was before they had such extensive drone capabilities.