Israeli forces advanced in southern Lebanon on Monday, raiding new territory as part of a stated effort to expand a military-controlled buffer zone as it steps up its campaign against the Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah.

Israeli fighter jets also bombarded the southern outskirts of Beirut, the Lebanese capital, sending huge explosions echoing throughout the city. Earlier Monday, Israel had threatened to begin attacking sites affiliated with al-Qard al-Hasan, Hezbollah’s de facto bank.

Israeli ground forces began raiding an area close to the border with Lebanon, the military said in a statement, after advancing in the border area over recent days and seizing new sites inside Lebanon.

Nearly 400 people had been killed, including more than 80 children, in the conflict in Lebanon as of Sunday, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. Edouard Beigbeder, the regional director for UNICEF, the United Nations’ children’s agency, called the death toll “a stark testament to the toll that conflict is taking on children.”

The Israeli military said Sunday that it had killed more than 190 militants, without commenting on the rest of the dead.

The conflict ignited last week, when Hezbollah launched a rocket attack against Israel, in retaliation for the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whom Israel assassinated in the opening strikes of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. Since then, the Israeli military has responded with an escalating military campaign across Lebanon.

Lebanon’s parliament announced Monday that it would postpone for two years legislative elections that had been set to take place in May because of the conflict. The Lebanese government has faced considerable pressure to disarm Hezbollah, which is also an entrenched political party and social movement.

Hezbollah is facing rising public frustration at home, where some Lebanese say they have now been dragged unwillingly into a dangerous and deadly confrontation with Israel without any clear benefit.

Analysts say the Israeli actions could signal that a wider ground invasion in Lebanon is in the works. The Israeli military has called up roughly 100,000 reserve soldiers as part of the war with Iran, some of whom have been sent to the northern border.

Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesperson, dismissed that prospect. “This is part of our forward defense posture. This is a measure to make sure that our troops in those positions are safe,” Shoshani told reporters Monday.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Aaron Boxerman and Christina Goldbaum/Diego Ibarra Sánchez
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