TEL AVIV, October 8. /TASS/. Israel began what it called limited and targeted operations against Lebanon's Shia Hezbollah movement in the southwestern Arab republic on Monday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement.

"Yesterday (Monday), the 146th Division began limited, localized, targeted operational activities against Hezbollah terror targets and infrastructure in southwestern Lebanon," the statement reads.

Over the past year, the division has operated in the northern sector of Israel’s border with Lebanon. "Since the beginning of the war, the headquarters of the 146th Division has served as a defensive regional brigade and its forces were deployed in northern Israel, the Gaza Strip, and in Judea and Samaria (the Israeli term that serves as another name for the West Bank - TASS)," the Israeli military added. Its soldiers will be tasked with exposing and dismantling "terrorist infrastructure in the area."

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7, 2023, when militants from the Gaza Strip-based radical Palestinian movement Hamas staged a surprise attack on Israeli territory from Gaza, killing residents of Israeli border settlements and taking hostages. In response, Israel declared a total siege of the Gaza Strip and began a military operation in the Palestinian enclave.

Israel has been delivering massive airstrikes on Hezbollah military targets since it launched Operation Northern Arrows in Lebanon on September 23. In the early hours of Tuesday, the Israeli army began what it called a limited ground operation across its northern border into Lebanon.