Israeli official says marching to Beirut 'not on the table'

An Israeli military official said that marching to Beirut, as Israeli forces did during their 1982 invasion of Lebanon, is "not on the table," after Israel warned nearly two dozen Lebanese border communities to evacuate, hours after launching what it said was a limited ground incursion against Hezbollah.

In 1982, the Israeli invasion was also pitched as a limited incursion to push the Palestine Liberation Organization back but Israel only withdrew fully from Lebanon in 2000.

The official said the operation in its current stages does not mirror Israel's ground incursions in Gaza, where the military entered cities with heavy manpower, artillery and tanks.

That could change, depending on whether Israel's government decides to launch a more extensive ground operation. Chris Coyle, a resident of Israel's north, told AP on Monday that Israeli tanks had been positioned along the border.

Troops that entered Lebanon are from the 98th division, the military said. The division is responsible for some of the heaviest fighting inside Gaza and includes elite units specializing in attacks behind enemy lines.

Meanwhile, Israel is expanding its evacuation warnings in southern Lebanon, sending hundreds of thousands of Lebanese fleeing from the south.

On Tuesday, the Israeli military's Arabic-language spokesperson asked residents living in villages north of a U.N.-declared buffer zone to flee. Under a U.N. resolution that ended the 2006 war, the zone was supposed to be controlled by a U.N. peacekeeping force and the Lebanese military.

Hezbollah denied that Israeli troops entered Lebanon but said its fighters are ready for a “direct confrontation” if they cross the border.

In its first statement since Israel announced the start of ground operations, Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afifi said reports that Israeli forces had entered Lebanon were “false claims.”

He said Hezbollah fighters are ready “to have direct confrontation with enemy forces that dare to or try to enter Lebanon to inflict casualties among them.”

He also said Hezbollah's firing of medium-range missiles toward central Israel earlier on Tuesday “is only the beginning.”