US secretary of defence warns of ‘serious consequences’ for Iran if it attacks Israel or exploits tensions – as it happened

Here’s where things stand in the hours since Israel’s military confirmed it had started a “limited” ground operation inside Lebanon. This blog is closing now but you can continue to follow live coverage on our new liveblog.

• The Israeli military has begun a “limited, localised and targeted” ground operation against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, it has said, as it continued shelling areas close to the border and carrying out airstrikes on the capital, Beirut. The targets are “located in villages close to the border and pose an immediate threat to Israeli communities in northern Israel,” the IDF said.

• Heavy shelling into Lebanon was taking place along the border in the area north of Kiryat Shimona. The towns of Marjayoun, Wazzani and Khiam were being shelled on Monday night. There were also reports of a heavy presence of Israeli aircraft over southern Lebanon.

• Israel launched a strike on a building in the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian camp near southern Lebanon’s city of Sidon, a Palestinian source told the Reuters news agency. Israeli media is reporting that Mounir Maqdah, who is reportedly a commander in the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and the purported target of the strike, was injured in the attack. Al Jazeera has reported multiple casualties in the strike. Ain al-Hilweh is Lebanon’s largest camp for Palestinian refugees. If confirmed it would be the first strike on the overcrowded camp since cross-border hostilities broke out nearly a year ago.

• Syrian state media reported early on Tuesday that three civilians had been killed in Israeli strikes on the capital Damascus. State television had earlier said one of its presenters had been killed; it was not immediately clear whether they were among the three mentioned by state media. The reports could not be verified independently.

• Israel carried out more airstrikes in Dahieh, the southern suburbs of Beirut, after the Israeli military issued new instructions ordering residents of three buildings in the neighbourhood to evacuate immediately. Huge explosions were heard in the Lebanese capital late on Monday night. Israel’s military spokesperson Avichay Adraee issued maps of three locations in Dahieh, instructing residents to evacuate more than 500 metres away, marking the second time Israel instructed residents of Dahieh to evacuate prior to strikes.

• At least 95 people were killed in Israeli strikes across Lebanon on Monday, according to the country’s health ministry. An airstrike early on Monday hit an apartment building in central Beirut – the first to hit in the heart of the Lebanese capital since 2006.

• The Lebanese army said it was “repositioning and regrouping forces” amid reports it had withdrawn three miles from the country’s southern border. The Lebanese army has evacuated observation posts at Lebanon’s southern border with Israel and moved to barracks in the border villages, according to reports.

• UN peacekeepers in Lebanon can no longer patrol border areas in the south due to heavy artillery fire from Israeli forces and Hezbollah, a UN spokesperson said. The peacekeeping force of more than 10,000 personnel “remain in position” but cannot carry out road patrols due to “the intensity of the rockets going back and forth”, a spokesperson for the UN secretary general said on Monday.

• US defence secretary Lloyd Austin said he had spoken to his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant and that the pair had “agreed on the necessity of dismantling attack infrastructure along the border” with Lebanon. He also said he had “made clear that the United States is well-postured to defend US personnel, partners, and allies in the face of threats from Iran and Iran-backed terrorist organizations”.

• A US state department spokesperson said Israel had informed the US that it was conducting “limited ground operations focused on Hezbollah infrastructure near the border”. The US president, Joe Biden, said he was aware of Israel’s plans to launch an operation into Lebanon as he urged against such a move. “I’m more aware than you might know and I’m comfortable with them stopping,” he told reporters at the White House. “We should have a ceasefire now.”

• The US is sending a “few thousand” troops to the Middle East to bolster security and to defend Israel if necessary, the Pentagon said on Monday. The increased presence will involve multiple fighter jet and attack aircraft squadrons, Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told reporters. The additional forces would raise the total number of troops in the region to as many as 43,000.

• The UK government announced it has chartered a commercial flight out of Lebanon for Britons wanting to leave amid escalating violence. The flight is due to leave Beirut-Rafic Hariri international airport on Wednesday, the Foreign Office said, with priority given to vulnerable British nationals and their spouses, partners and children under 18.

• Canada has announced it has reserved 800 seats on commercial flights to evacuate its citizens from Lebanon. “The security situation in Lebanon is becoming increasingly dangerous and volatile,” Canadian foreign affairs minister Melanie Joly wrote on X.

With just a month left until the US presidential elections, the Biden administration launched a tepid effort at a ceasefire that Netanyahu appears to have chosen to ignore – or simply to wait out until US elections that could bring in a Trump administration that would do even less to restrain him than the current one has.

“Netanyahu made a calculation, and the calculation was that there was no way that the Democrats between now and November 5th [election day] could do anything that would criticise, let alone restrain him from that,” said Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who focuses on US foreign policy and the Middle East.

“You saw [vice-president Kamala] Harris’s statement, you saw the White House statement, you saw the Democrat and Republican consensus on the killing of Nasrallah and what the Israelis have done there,” he said. “And since Iran is involved in this, unlike in Gaza, the toxicity of animus against Iran in this town is so intense that the Republican party, which is now the ‘Israel can do no wrong’ party, is just winging for the administration.”

Until recently, prominent US officials have thought they still had a chance to conclude a ceasefire and prevent the war from escalating further. Last week, US and French officials along with dozens of other countries called for a ceasefire in Lebanon. US officials briefed on the matter said they believed the “time was right” and that Israel would sign up.

A western official last week told the Guardian that the Israeli threat to invade northern Lebanon was probably “psyops” largely designed to force Hezbollah and Iran to the negotiating table.

One day later, a massive airstrike launched by the Israeli air force killed the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, upending security calculations in the region and potentially emboldening Israeli officials to believe they could fundamentally change the security dynamics in the region.