Israel appeared to move closer to launching a ground offensive against Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, while U.S. President Joe Biden forcefully said he opposed such a move by the close U.S. ally, as events in the Middle East threatened to spin out of control.
"The next stage in the war against Hezbollah will begin soon," Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told troops stationed in northern Israel on September 30, hours after The Wall Street Journal reported that Israeli special forces had already made incursions into Lebanon.
"We will use all the means that may be required -- your forces, other forces, from the air, from the sea, and on land," Gallant said.
"The elimination of [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah is an important step, but it is not the final one."
Israel killed longtime nemesis Nasrallah on September 27 as it launched a series of massive air strikes in and around Beirut and southern Lebanon that has also claimed the lives of multiple Hezbollah leaders and other members of sanctioned militant groups.
Hezbollah is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, while the European Union blacklists its armed wing but not its political party. Hezbollah’s political party has seats in the Lebanese parliament.
Meanwhile, when asked whether he was comfortable with Israel launching a ground operation in Lebanon, Biden told reporters that “I'm comfortable with them stopping. We should have a cease-fire now.”
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot, speaking from Beirut, also urged Israel "to refrain from any ground incursion and to cease fire." He also called on Hezbollah "to do the same and to refrain from any action likely to lead to regional destabilization."
Israeli attacks in Lebanon and in Yemen against Iran-backed Huthi rebels and claims by Tehran-allied Hezbollah militants that they had fired into Israel with its new "nour missile" – which observers say might be a ballistic missile – led to increased fears on September 30 that there could be an all-out war in the Middle East.
Separately, Iran said it will not deploy forces to Lebanon or the Gaza Strip to fight Israel amid the intensified attacks against the Hezbollah in Lebanon.
"There is no need to send extra or volunteer forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran," Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said on September 30, saying Lebanon and fighters in the Palestinian territories "have the capability and strength to defend themselves against the aggression."
Kanani's statement came as Naim Qassem, the deputy chief of Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militant group and political party that controls much of southern Lebanon, said in a video message that a replacement for Nasrallah will be chosen "sooner, rather than later."
In the message, he said the selection will be made within the regular mechanisms of Hezbollah. He gave no further details.
Nasrallah was killed last week in an Israeli air strike on the southern command center of Hezbollah.
SEE ALSO: Hassan Nasrallah's Death A 'Major Loss' For Hezbollah And Ally Iran
Iranian President Masud Pezeshkian visited the Hezbollah office in Tehran on September 30 "to pay tribute" to Nasrallah, according to the government's website.
Israel's air strikes continued on September 30, including a hit on central Beirut, the first in nearly a year of escalating conflict with Hezbollah, that began after another Iran-supported group designated as a terrorist organization, Hamas, launched an operation into Israel that killed some 1,200 people, with another 250 taken hostage back to the Gaza Strip.
Israel's military has also widened its attacks on Iran-backed militant groups, striking the Yemeni port city of Hodeida, which is held by Tehran-allied Huthi rebels, even as it intensified air strikes on Hezbollah strongholds in southern Beirut and elsewhere in Lebanon.
The losses suffered by Hezbollah appear to be the heaviest since Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps helped create the militant group in 1982 to blunt an Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
Nasrallah joined Hezbollah to fight in that conflict, and in 1992 became its leader, building the group into Lebanon's most powerful military and political force.