BEIRUT — Israel’s widely expected ground invasion of Lebanon appeared to be getting underway early on Tuesday as its military said troops had begun “limited” raids against Hezbollah targets in the border area.

The military said in a statement that it had begun “limited, localized, and targeted ground raids based on precise intelligence” against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon villages close to the border that posed “an immediate threat to Israeli communities in northern Israel”.

It said the air force and artillery were supporting the ground forces with “precise strikes.”

Local residents in the Lebanese border town of Aita al-Shaab reported heavy shelling and the sound of helicopters and drones overhead. Flares were repeatedly launched over the Lebanese border town of Rmeish, lighting up the night sky.

On Monday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant had told local council heads in northern Israel that the next phase of the war along Lebanon’s southern border would begin soon, and would support the aim of bringing home Israelis who have fled Hezbollah rockets during nearly a year of border warfare.

The ground invasion represents an escalating conflict in the Middle East between Israel and Iran-backed militants, sparked by an assault on Israel by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, that now threatens to suck in the US and Iran.

An Israeli strike in Lebanon early on Tuesday targeted Mounir Maqdah, commander of the Lebanese branch of the Palestinian Fatah movement’s military wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, according to two Palestinian security officials.

His fate was unknown.

The strike hit a building in the crowded Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp near the southern city of Sidon, the sources said. It marked the first strike on the camp, Lebanon’s largest Palestinian camp, since cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel broke out nearly a year ago.

In Syria, three civilians were killed and nine others injured in an Israeli airstrike on the capital Damascus, Syrian state media said on Tuesday citing a military source. Israel’s military said it does not comment on foreign media reports.

Israel has been carrying out strikes against Iran-linked targets in Syria for years but has ramped up raids since the Hamas attack on Israel’s southern territory on Oct. 7, 2023.

Hamas killed 1,200 people and took about 250 hostage in its assault on Israel, according to Israeli tallies. Israel in response launched a massive assault on Hamas in Gaza, reducing most of the Palestinian territory to rubble, displacing most of its 2.3 million people and killing more than 41,300 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry.

STRIKES ON BEIRUT
Israel’s ground invasion into Lebanon follows its deadly detonation of booby-trapped Hezbollah pagers, two weeks of airstrikes, and its killing on Friday of Hezbollah head Hassan Nasrallah, which dealt the group one of the heaviest blows in decades.

The intensive air strikes have eliminated several Hezbollah commanders but also killed about 1,000 civilians and forced one million to flee their homes, according to the Lebanese government.

Overnight, strikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs, a security source said. A Reuters reporter witnessed a flash of light and a series of loud blasts about an hour after the Israeli military warned residents to evacuate areas near buildings it said contained Hezbollah infrastructure south of the Lebanese capital.

In the past 24 hours, at least 95 people had been killed and 172 wounded in Israeli strikes on Lebanon’s southern regions, the eastern Bekaa Valley, and Beirut, Lebanon’s health ministry said early on Tuesday.

Hezbollah’s deputy leader Naim Qassem, in a first public speech on Monday since Nasrallah’s death, said that “the resistance forces are ready for a ground engagement.”

He said Hezbollah had continued to fire rockets as deep as 150 km (93 miles) into Israeli territory.

“We know that the battle may be long. We will win as we won in the liberation of 2006,” he said, referring to the last big conflict between the two foes.

Late on Monday, Lebanese troops pulled back about five kilometers (3 miles) from positions along Lebanon’s southern border with Israel, a Lebanese security source told Reuters. A Lebanese army spokesperson did not confirm or deny the movement.

Lebanon’s army has historically stayed on the sidelines of major conflicts with Israel, and in the last year of hostilities has not fired on the Israeli military.

The White House and the US State department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Israel’s ground operations in Lebanon.

But on Monday, US President Joseph R. Biden had called for a ceasefire.

“I’m more worried than you might know and I’m comfortable with them stopping,” Mr. Biden told reporters when asked if he was comfortable with Israeli plans for a cross-border incursion. “We should have a ceasefire now.”

Israel last week rejected a proposal by the US and France calling for a 21-day ceasefire on the Lebanon border to give time for a diplomatic settlement that would allow displaced civilians on both sides to return home. — Reuters

KAOHSIUNG, Taiwan — Taiwan mobilized nearly 40,000 troops on Tuesday to bolster rescue efforts as the powerful Typhoon Krathon approaching its populous southwest coast is expected to bring a storm surge and the coast guard raced to locate 19 sailors who abandoned ship.

Taiwan regularly gets hit by typhoons but they generally land along the mountainous and sparsely populated east coast facing the Pacific, but this one will make landfall on the island’s flat western plain.

Krathon is forecast to hit the major port city of Kaohsiung early on Wednesday afternoon, then work its way across the center of Taiwan heading northeast and cross out into the East China Sea, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said.

Kaohsiung, home to some 2.7 million people, declared a holiday and told people to stay at home as Krathon — labeled a super typhoon by the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center — approached.

Li Meng-hsiang, a forecaster for Taiwan’s Central Weather Administration, said the storm has reached its maximum intensity and could weaken slightly as it moves closer to Taiwan, warning of gusts of more than 150 kph (93 mph) for the southwest.

“The storm surge might bring tides inland,” Li said. “If it’s raining heavily it will make it difficult to discharge waters and as a result coastal areas will be subject to flooding.”

Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai, speaking to reporters after a disaster management meeting, said the strength and path of the storm were both on par with 1977’s Typhoon Thelma which killed 37 people and devastated the city.

“After the typhoon, the whole of Kaohsiung was without water and electricity, just like a war,” Chen said, recalling the decades-ago destruction. “As much as possible, limit going out.”

Taiwan’s Defense ministry said it had put more than 38,000 troops on standby, as Kaohsiung residents made their own preparations.

“It’s going to strike us directly. We must be fully prepared,” said fisherman Chen Ming-huang. “In the worst-case scenario the ropes might snap and my boat could drift away.”

TSMC, the world’s largest contract chip maker and a major supplier to Apple and Nvidia, said it had activated routine typhoon preparations and did not expect a significant impact to its operations.

SEARCH FOR SAILORS
Off the southeast coast, Taiwan’s coast guard dispatched a boat to rescue 19 sailors from the cargo vessel Blue Lagoon who were forced to abandon ship as it took on water in its engine room, with a rescue helicopter having to turn back due to the wind and rain.

The coast guard said the crew consisted of seven Ukrainians, nine Egyptians and three Russians, which had set off from China’s Caofeidian port for Singapore.

The transport ministry said 85 domestic flights and nine international ones had been canceled for Wednesday, with boats to outlying islands also stopped.

The rail line connecting southern to eastern Taiwan was closed, though the north-south high-speed line was operating as normal, albeit with enhanced safety checks for wind and debris.

In Kaohsiung, most shops and restaurants pulled down their doors and shutters, and traditional wet markets shut with streets mostly deserted.

At a building in Siaogang district, home to the city’s airport, residents practiced how to rapidly set up metal barriers to stop water flooding into the underground parking lot.

“We will have only a few minutes to react if the flooding is coming,” said Chiu Yun-ping, deputy head of the building’s residents’ committee.

Chen Mei-ling, who lives near the harbor, said in past typhoons high tides reached just a few meters (feet) from her house’s main door and she had made preparations.

“We’ve got torches and emergency food supplies,” Chen said. “It’s a strong typhoon and we are worried.” — Reuters

TOKYO — Shigeru Ishiba was confirmed as Japan’s next prime minister by parliament on Tuesday, paving the way for him to officially unveil his Cabinet as he seeks to heal party divisions and prepare for an Oct. 27 snap election.

The 67-year-old former defence minister won a close-fought contest last week to lead the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Mr. Ishiba is expected to hold a late press conference on Tuesday after the Emperor formally appoints him, and his Cabinet, in a ceremony at Tokyo’s Imperial Palace.

Now in power, he must quell simmering anger over rising living costs and his scandal-plagued party, and navigate a volatile security environment in East Asia fueled by an increasingly assertive China and nuclear-armed North Korea.

The veteran lawmaker, seen as somewhat of a party outsider who failed at four previous leadership bids, has already begun picking government and party officials who will contest the upcoming general election with him.

So far those include two rival candidates in the leadership race, Katsunobu Kato as Finance minister and Yoshimasa Hayashi to stay on as chief Cabinet secretary, a pivotal post that includes the role of top government spokesman, two sources familiar with the appointments told Reuters earlier.

A close Ishiba ally, Takeshi Iwaya, a former Defense chief, will take over as foreign minister, while Gen Nakatani will return to the Defense ministry, a position he held in 2016, said the sources, who asked not to be identified because they are not authorized to speak publicly, confirming earlier media reports.

Yoji Muto, a former junior minister, will take charge at the economy, trade and industry ministry, a separate source said.

The Ishiba administration’s approach to diplomacy with Japan’s closest ally, the United States, will be in focus, as he has repeatedly called for a more balanced relationship with Washington.

He has also proposed creating an Asian version of the collective security group North Atlantic Treaty Organization to deter China, an idea that could draw ire from Beijing and has already been dismissed by a senior US official as hasty.

In his victory speech on Friday, he spoke about the need to beef up Japan’s security after recent territorial incursions by Chinese and Russian military vessels.

ECONOMIC POLICY
Mr. Kato’s appointment to the finance ministry will be closely watched given he served in key positions in former premier Shinzo Abe’s administration, which pursued expansionary fiscal and monetary policies.

The Nikkei stock index .N225 fell nearly 5% on Monday in reaction to a surging yen following Ishiba’s win over Sanae Takaichi, a monetary dove and fiscal expansionist, in Friday’s leadership contest. The index recovered ground on Tuesday.

Ms. Takaichi, a hardline conservative he beat by 215 votes to 194 on Friday in the closest leadership election in almost seven decades, appears to not be in the running for a top position after local media reported she declined a senior party post.

That could make it difficult for Mr. Ishiba, a perennial favorite in public opinion polls, to manage a fractious ruling group roiled by scandals.

But despite its troubles, the party which has ruled Japan for most of the postwar era remains likely to hold on to power in the upcoming election given Japan’s weak opposition.

A third of respondents to a weekend poll by the Mainichi newspaper said they supported the LDP, versus 15% for the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan.

More than half of the respondents, including those who supported opposition parties, said they were optimistic about Ishiba’s appointment. — Reuters