Israeli soldiers received orders on Monday night to invade Lebanon for the first time since the war with Hezbollah in 2006.

Troops, including paratroopers, along with tanks and other military vehicles, had been gathering at the northern border over the past two weeks.

Special forces troops made a number of cross-border raids over the weekend before Israeli finally gave the green light to a “limited, localised and targeted” ground offensive.

“We have the great privilege of writing history, as we did in Gaza … to do it here in Lebanon as well,” the commander of the elite Egoz unit told soldiers in an undisclosed location on the northern border.

The commander said the IDF started with “low-key operations, and today we’re going to begin a more significant manoeuvre”.

Walking on foot with night-vision goggles, the soldiers began conducting “limited, localized, and targeted ground raids” against Hezbollah targets and infrastructure in southern Lebanon.

The IDF said that the targets hit by the elite unit are located in villages close to the border and “pose an immediate threat to Israeli communities in northern Israel”.

As was the case in Gaza when Israel launched its ground invasion in late October, the Israeli Air Force and IDF Artillery supported the ground forces with “precise strikes on military targets in the area”.

In the early hours of Tuesday, Israeli airstrikes targeted several weapons manufacturing facilities and Hezbollah infrastructure in Beirut’s Dahiya neighbourhood.

Israel also fired flares over the Palestinian camp Ein al-Hilweh near the city of Sidon in southern Lebanon before launching airstrikes.

The target of that attack was reportedly Munir al-Maqdah, a top Hezbollah commander of the Fatah-aligned al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.

It is unclear if al-Mawdah survived the attack but his son was reportedly among five people killed.

Israeli shelling was also reported on Tuesday morning on the Lebanese border town of Aita al-Shaab and Remish Rmeish.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah fired two rockets at the Upper Gallillee overnight, causing no damage and landing in open fields.

Rockets intercepted

A dozen rockets were fired at northern Israel again in the early morning hours on Tuesday, some of which were intercepted and others landing in open areas.

Israel’s air defence system also intercepted a drone over the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of central Israel.

In Syria, three people were reportedly killed in an Israeli airstrike in Damascus, including Safaa Ahmad, an anchor on Syrian state TV.

Israel launched warplanes and drones from the “direction of the occupied Syrian Golan, targeting several points in Damascus,” according to the official SANA news agency.

After many months of operating in the Gaza Strip, where the soldiers of the division gained skills and operational experience, they moved north and are now operating in the northern arena after making the necessary adjustments for fighting in Lebanon.

In Iraq, Multiple Katyusha rockets were fired near Baghdad International Airport, according to Reuters.

While initial reports stated that the target had been U.S. forces, an American defence official told Reuters that “all military personnel are accounted for and military forces were not targeted as had been reported.”

Two Iraqi security sources told Reuters that one of the rockets caused fire and damaged vehicles near “buildings used by Iraqi counter-terrorism forces”.