What we’re covering
• Israeli special forces have carried out raids into Lebanese territory in preparation for a possible ground offensive. The US believes Israel could imminently launch a more limited ground incursion into southern Lebanon than originally planned, an official says.
• Airstrikes hit inside Beirut’s city limits early Monday, for the first time since October 7. The attack comes days after Israel assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. The escalation in the war has killed civilians, destroyed homes and displaced 1 million people in Lebanon.
• Hezbollah said it would choose a leader to succeed Nasrallah as soon as possible. The group also vowed to continue fighting Israel in support of Palestinians, even after a growing number of senior figures were killed.
• Ramping up its attacks on multiple fronts against Iran-backed militants, Israel has launched strikes targeting the Houthis in Yemen. An Israeli strike has also killed Hamas’ leader in Lebanon.
24 children evacuated from Gaza in Israeli-European Union operation
Twenty-four wounded and sick children and their companions have been evacuated from Gaza in a joint Israeli-European Union operation, an Israeli official told CNN.
In total, 32 people were evacuated from the enclave.
The Palestinians who were evacuated are being relocated to Romania, according to the Israeli official. The action was directly approved by Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
The “next stage” of Hezbollah war will start soon, Israeli defense minister says
The “next stage” of Israel’s war against Hezbollah will “begin soon,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told the heads of regional councils in northern Israel.
In a meeting with the so-called “Confrontation Line” forum on Monday, Gallant discussed the current security situation and said that conflict with Hezbollah was “necessary” for the residents of northern Israel to return home.
Gallant also said he had visited Israeli forces and met with military commanders on the border with Lebanon.
“They are prepared, they are strong, they are in close cooperation,” he said of the troops.
Netanyahu is holding a consultation with senior security officials
An Israeli official has confirmed to CNN that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is holding a security consultation with senior security officials, which was expected to begin at 7 p.m. local time (12 p.m. ET).
Netanyahu will later meet with the National Security Cabinet at 9 p.m. local time (2 p.m. ET), according to the official.
Ground operation in Lebanon would not be a “solution to the problem,” former Israeli prime minister says
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he does not think that an Israeli ground operation into Lebanon would be a “solution to the problem.”
Olmert was prime minister when Israel invaded Lebanon in 2006.
He said what is needed in the north of Israel is a joint coordination with the United States, the United Nations and the Lebanese government to move a “weakened” Hezbollah away from the Litani River in southern Lebanon.
The former prime minister also said Israel should stop its war in Gaza. He told CNN he thinks his country has “reached the objectives that we set out that we could achieve” there.
“There is nothing more that is worth the cost of fighting in the south, particularly the danger to the lives of the hostages, which are still alive and which we may have brought them back in part of an agreement to ceasefire in the south,” he added.
More US-based troops put on prepare to deploy orders to Middle East amid rising tensions, the Pentagon says
An unspecified number of troops in the US have been put on prepare to deploy orders, Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said on Monday.
Singh also said that additional air defense support going to the region, announced by the Pentagon on Sunday, are units previously scheduled to deploy that will now be joining units already there instead of replacing them.
The reinforcement of air support capabilities, she said, includes “a certain number of units already deployed to the Middle East region that will be extended, and the forces due to rotate into theater to replace them will now instead augment the in-place forces already in the region.” It will include “an additional few thousand” service members in the region, she said.
“I can tell you these augmented forces include F-16, F-15E, A-10, F-22 fighter aircraft and associated personnel,” Singh said.
Biden urges Israel to stop raids in Lebanon
US President Joe Biden sharply urged Israel to halt special operations raids in Lebanese territory near Israel’s border Monday.
“I’m more aware than you might know and I’m comfortable with them stopping,” Biden told a reporter when asked if he was comfortable with the operation.
“We should have a ceasefire now,” he added.
Earlier Monday, one US official described those raids to CNN as “very precise, very targeted, very small raids” – of the kind where “you go in, you go out” to specifically target Hezbollah’s capabilities.
The Biden administration is caught in a high-tension balancing act following the Israeli attack that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah: adjusting its military posture amid fears of escalation, while also aiming to deescalate the conflict five weeks before the US election.
Elderly man says “people were just going about their day” when Israeli strike hit Gaza market
An Israeli airstrike killed at least one Palestinian and wounded several other people at a food market in Bureij, central Gaza, on Monday, according to health officials.
CNN footage from Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, in Deir al-Balah, showed paramedics wheeling traumatized survivors, swaddled in blankets, on metal stretchers. Many were groaning in pain and covered in a thin layer of dust, with torn clothes and bloodied limbs.
“We were just walking in the middle of the street when a strike hit,” one elderly man, Abdul Nasser Awadallah, told CNN. His grey thobe was covered in flecks of blood. “Some people were torn apart.
In one scene, a rescue worker carried a young girl, with bandages wrapped around her upper torso. Her face was expressionless and her pupils dilated in shock. The video shows a nurse asking the child, who was brought to the hospital alone, where her parents are. But she does not respond.
At least 19,000 children in Gaza have been separated from their parents or caregivers, the UN’s children’s agency reported in August.
Another survivor said he was with his young nephew when the blast went off. “Suddenly we heard an explosion,” Mohammad Al Jiedi recalled, while lying on a hospital gurney. His voice was breathless, as he clutched onto his blood-soaked white vest. “I started running. The market was very crowded.”
CNN has reached out to the Israeli military for comment on the strik
