Lebanon: Israel commences ground invasion, air force strike Palestinian refugee camp, multiple killed in Syria

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has again urged Australians to get out of Lebanon.

“We repeat the call for Australians in Lebanon to come home,” Mr Albanese said.

“We’ve been saying for months it is time to leave.

“It’s certainly time to leave now, while opportunities are still available

An estimated 15,000 Australians are still in Lebanon despite warnings from DFAT.

“At the moment, there are some commercial opportunities available,” he said.

“We want Australians to take up the opportunity to come home to safety.”

At present., only Lebanese-owned airline Middle East Airlines (MEA) is flying in or out of Beirut’s only public airport.

Day light has broken in Lebanon, as the country wakes with Israeli troops within its borders.

Israel has said the IDF will continue operations until it has dismantled Hezbollah’s ability to attack.

As yet, face-to-face battle has not yet occured, instead, a series of Israeli air strikes have hit Beirut, Lebanese villages on the border of Israel, Syria and Gaza.

Hezbollah attacks have continued to target Israel, with air defence systems used to thwart attacks.

It is unclear if Israel plans to conduct further operations under daylight.

Multiple countries including Bulgeria and the UK have organised charter flights to evacuate citizens from the troubled region grapples with the first ground invasion from Israel in 18 years.

Israel’s Air Force has confirmed it has intercepted an unmanned aircraft in the sky over the Mediterranean Sea.

The craft was only dozens of kilometers west of the coast of Israel in the central region of the country.

The IAF did not claridy which direction the craft was flying in.

The Israeli air stike on Ain al-Hilweh, the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Sidon, Lebanon, has so far killed five people.

The overcrowded camp hosts around 250,00 people.

Reports have emerged that Munir al-Maqdah was the target of the attack.

Al-Maqdah is a senior figure of Fatah, a Palestinian nationalist and social democratic political party.

It has not yet been confirmed if he has been killed, however reports of the death of his family members are starting to emerge.

Hezbollah is continuing it’s operations on Israel despite the “limited ground offences”.

Hezbollah has fired rockets and carried out separate attacks on Israeli forces and Israeli settlements in recent hours.

On Monday, Hezbollah vowed to keep fighting even after its longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah and other top officials were recently wiped out by Israeli strikes.

The group’s acting leader, Naim Qassem, said in a televised statement that if Israel decides to launch a ground offensive, Hezbollah is ready.

He said commanders killed in recent weeks have already been replaced.

A base housing US troops at Baghdad International Airport in Iraq has been targeted by three rockets.

The source of the rockets has not yet been confirmed.

“The Victory Base at Baghdad Airport was targeted with three rockets, two of which were shot down by the base’s special defences, while the third fell near the headquarters of the Counter Terrorism Service Command,” a security source told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

President Joe Biden is yet to comment on the attack or the escalation of Israel entering Lebanon.

First Israel ignored a US-led effort to impose a cease-fire in its escalating war against Hezbollah. Then it killed the militant movement’s leader, Hasan Nasrallah, in a massive attack, taking Washington by surprise.

Now, following a weekend scramble to avert a ground invasion of Lebanon, Israel is conducting exactly that, underscoring Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s disregard for the Biden administration’s entreaties and the limits of its influence on his actions.

The widening gap between US desires and Israeli behaviour has left the administration struggling to adapt its diplomatic efforts to accommodate Netanyahu’s impulses.

This chasm between the two allies has become especially pronounced in the days since the White House promised on Wednesday that Israel and Lebanon were about to agree to a cease-fire deal, only to end up a bystander as Netanyahu vowed at the United Nations to wipe out Hezbollah’s ability to threaten Israel for the foreseeable future.

President Joe Biden has made clear his desire for an immediate halt to the fighting.

Asked at the White House on Monday whether he was aware that Israel was preparing a limited incursion into Lebanon, he said: “I’m more aware than you might know, and I’m comfortable with them stopping. We should have a cease-fire now.”

The Biden administration claims that it has been able to shape Israeli policy in recent days, most recently convincing Netanyahu this weekend to launch only a limited ground incursion into southern Lebanon rather than the full-scale invasion he had been contemplating.

But US officials have been forced repeatedly to revise their red lines, retroactively justifying Israeli decisions that ahead of time they declared would be foolhardy.

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Peter Dutton has demanded full security checks for any Australians evacuated from Lebanon, as the situation in the Middle East escalates and the fallout from “worrying” weekend protests continues.

An estimated 15,000 Australians are believed to still be in Lebanon despite being urged to leave for months.

Beirut airport remains open, however, most commercial flights are being cancelled.

The Government has an evacuation plan ready for when there are no flight left, but the Opposition Leader — who sought a briefing on the potential plans and third country staging locations — is seeking further assurances.

“They’ve given us those assurances that the (evacuation) plans (exist) because we need to make sure that we’re providing support, obviously to Australian citizens, but we also need to make sure that people who we’re bringing out at the 11th hour in difficult circumstances where bombs are dropping, that we’re not compromising on security checks of people that we’re bringing back to Australia as well,” he told Channel 9.

“We need to get it right.”

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Ain al-Hilweh, the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Sidon, Lebanon, has been hit by an Israeli air strike.

The camp hosts around 250,00 people and is described as densely populated and overcrowded.

Israeli warplanes reportedly bombed a building, sending terrified refugees running from the camp in fear for their lives.

Local media is reporting a figure was being targeted in the camp.

A death toll has not yet been shared, however, attempts are already being made to pull bodies from the rubble.

As Israel commences its “limited ground invasion” of Lebanon, air strikes have hit on Syria and Gaza.

A strike in the Syrian capital of Damascus has reportedly killed three people, including a local journalist.

The blast hit Mazzeh in the southwest central area of the city.

Syrian state TV shared a statement confirming the death of anchor Safaa Ahmad, saying she “was martyred in the Israeli aggression on the capital Damascus”.

Israeli has not yet claimed responsibility for the strike.