On Wednesday, the IDF chief of staff, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, announced a potential ground operation in the neighboring state as he talked to troops stationed at Israel’s northern border.

Airstrikes against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon over the past week were aimed at preparing the area “for the possibility of your entry”, the general told the troops.

According to Halevi, Israel was still seeking to return displaced residents from the northern regions to their homes.

“To do this, we are preparing the [ground] maneuver,” the general added, without revealing a time frame for the operation.

“You will go in, destroy the enemy there, and decisively destroy their infrastructure,” Halevi said, claiming that Hezbollah has turned villages into “large military outposts, with underground infrastructure, staging points, and launch pads into our territory”.

Israel and Hezbollah have sporadically exchanged fire over the past year, as the latter has supported the Palestinian cause in light of the regime’s military operation against Hamas.

Israel drastically escalated its campaign against the Lebanese group earlier this month, wounding thousands in a sabotage operation targeting the group’s handheld communication devices and subsequently bombarding southern Lebanon with airstrikes.

The ABC report came just a day after Hezbollah leader Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike targeting what was described as the group’s main headquarters in a southern suburb of the Lebanese capital, Beirut. The group confirmed its leader’s death early Saturday. No successor to Nasrallah has been named.

Israel stated later on Saturday that almost all of Hezbollah’s military leaders had been eliminated. It also shared a list of a dozen top commanders killed over the past few weeks.

“More than 100,000 have been officially registered, but many more — up to 250,000 — are estimated to be in formal and informal collective shelters,” Nasser Yassin, head of the Lebanon Crisis Observatory, told CNN on Saturday.

“We estimate four times as many have been directly affected and/or displaced outside the shelters,” Yassin, who serves as the country’s environment minister, added.

The Lebanese minister of health has also reported that the death toll since the Israel-Lebanon conflict began on October 8 of last year has risen to at least 1,640, with more than 8,408 people wounded.

The minister highlighted that many people remain trapped under the rubble, with missing people and dismembered bodies still being recovered.

Among those killed by Israeli strikes are 104 children and 194 women. Additionally, 41 health and ambulance workers have been killed and 111 others have been injured since the onset of the war.

The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has reported widespread trauma among Lebanon’s displaced population, stemming from relentless bombardment and the uncertainty of ongoing Israeli raids.

Philippe Lazzarini, the Commissioner-General of UNRWA, shared his concerns on X (formerly Twitter), urging the international community to ensure the “protection of civilians and civilian infrastructure” amid Israel’s continued airstrikes on Lebanon.

“We have opened seven shelters for the displaced, currently hosting 1,600 people, including Lebanese, Palestinians, and Syrians,” Lazzarini posted.

The recent attacks are part of the Israeli regime’s intensified assault on Lebanon, which has become more deadly in recent days.