JUST IN: 🇮🇱🇱🇧 Israel officially launches ground invasion in Lebanon.

Israel has launched cross-border raids in Lebanon as a ground invasion may be imminent, according to officials.

Israel is conducting small, precision raids across the border in Lebanon and a larger ground operation is being planned, a US official and a Western official told The Associated Press on Monday.

The United States has observed positioning of Israeli troops that suggests that a ground incursion into Lebanon could be imminent, a US official said to Reuters. – Source

Biden got asked Monday at the White House if he was 'comfortable' with what is being called a limited invasion. His answer took that word and instead called on Israel to hold back.

‘I'm more aware than you might know, and I'm comfortable with them stopping. We should have a ceasefire now,’ Biden said.

It came hours after Secretary of State Antony Blinken said 'diplomacy remains the best and only path to achieving greater stability in the Middle East.' – Source

The U.S. is sending an additional "few thousand" troops to the Middle East to bolster security and to be prepared to defend Israel if necessary, the Pentagon said Monday. – Source

Israel’s prime minister issued a warning to Iran Monday, just days after an airstrike south of Beirut killed the leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah group, which is backed by Tehran.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “there is nowhere in the Middle East Israel cannot reach.” Later Monday, officials in Washington confirmed Israeli troops were conducting small raids across the border in Lebanon, but provided no details. – Source

At least 45 people have been killed in Lebanon’s Ain al-Delb in the south of the capital Beirut, raising the death toll in Israeli attacks in the past 24 hours to 136, according to Lebanese authorities. – Source

For the past week, Israel has heavily bombed the country’s east, south and southern Beirut suburbs, killing hundreds of people and displacing up to one million. – Source