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BREAKING: Israel readies soldiers for ground invasion of Lebanon
“We are attacking all day, both to prepare the ground for the possibility of your entry, but also to continue striking Hezbollah,” were the words with which authorities indicated the readiness of the Israeli army to put boots on ground by marching into Lebanon, to upscale the onslaught against Hezbollah, through aerial bombardments.
Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi was quoted as giving the indication when he spoke to the tank brigade of the army, on Wednesday, as bombs continue to drop on major targets in Lebanon, following the days of blitzkrieg being conducted by the air force in the country.
Lebanon’s health minister said Wednesday’s strikes killed 51 people and injured 223, including in mountainous areas outside Hezbollah’s traditional strongholds, while Hezbollah said it had targeted Israel’s Mossad spy agency on Tel Aviv’s outskirts in the morning — the first time it has fired a ballistic missile in almost a year of cross-border clashes sparked by the Gaza war.
Channels Television, quoting agency reports, said in response, Israel said it hit 60 Hezbollah intelligence sites, among hundreds of the group’s targets struck across Lebanon, a development that is coming amid escalating cross-border clashes, after Israeli raids on Monday killed at least 558 people in the deadliest day of violence since Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war.
The report quoted Nour Hamad, a 22-year-old student in the eastern Lebanese city of Baalbek, described living “in a state of terror” all week, adding: “We spent four or five days without sleep, not knowing if we will wake up in the morning.”
The rest of the report went thus: In Tel Aviv, sirens sounded following Hezbollah’s unprecedented missile launch.
Tel Aviv resident Hedva Fadlon, 61, told AFP: “The situation is difficult. We feel the pressure and the tension… I don’t think anyone in the world would like to live like this.”
US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Hezbollah’s attack on Tel Aviv was “deeply concerning” but added there was “still time and space for a diplomatic solution here to de-escalate the tensions and to prevent an all-out war”.
The Israeli military said “over 280 Hezbollah” targets had been struck across Lebanon on Wednesday, adding the strikes were ongoing.
“Fighter jets struck 60 terrorist targets belonging to Hezbollah’s intelligence directorate,” the army said.
It also said two reserve brigades were being called up “for operational missions in the northern arena”, adding this would “enable the continuation of combat against the Hezbollah terrorist organisation”.
The United Nations Security Council said it would hold an emergency meeting on the crisis in New York on Wednesday, while UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned the situation was critical.
– Rocket commander killed –
The UN’s International Organization for Migration on Wednesday said 90,000 people had been displaced in Lebanon since Monday.
Among them, “many of the more than 111,000 people displaced since October… are likely to have been secondarily displaced”, a statement from the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs added.
It came after two days of what the Israeli military called “extensive” strikes on Hezbollah positions in Lebanon.
The Lebanese group on Tuesday confirmed an Israeli claim that it had killed their rocket forces commander Ibrahim Kobeissi in a strike on the Lebanese capital.
At the UN General Assembly in New York, Secretary-General Guterres issued a stark warning.
“We should all be alarmed by the escalation. Lebanon is at the brink,” he said, while cautioning against “the possibility of transforming Lebanon (into) another Gaza”.
US President Joe Biden, whose government is Israel’s main backer, said “full-scale war is not in anyone’s interest”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delayed his departure for New York until Thursday, where he too is due to speak at the General Assembly.
“During the day, the prime minister will hold consultations to discuss the continuation of the attacks in Lebanon,” his office said.
Netanyahu defied international calls for restraint, vowing on Tuesday to keep up Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah.
“We will continue to hit Hezbollah… the one who has a missile in his living room and a rocket in his home will not have a home,” he said.
Iran, Hezbollah’s main backer, condemned Israel’s raids, with supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei saying the recent killing of Hezbollah commanders would not crush the group.
“Some of the effective and valuable forces of Hezbollah were martyred, which undoubtedly caused damage to Hezbollah, but this was not the sort of damage that could bring the group to its knees,” he said.
While the Israel-Lebanon border has seen near-daily clashes for a year, the violence escalated dramatically last week, when coordinated communications device blasts that Hezbollah blamed on Israel killed 39 people and wounded almost 3,000.
Then Israel carried out an air strike on Hezbollah’s south Beirut stronghold, killing a top military commander and other fighters and civilians.
Efforts to end the war in Gaza, which analysts say are key to stopping the escalation in Lebanon, remain stalled.
Netanyahu has been accused by critics of stalling in Gaza ceasefire negotiations and prolonging the war to appease far-right coalition partners.
The war in Gaza began with Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.
Of the 251 hostages seized by militants, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,495 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN has described the figures as reliable.
Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, Governor of Oyo State, on Thursday, finally threw his hats into the ring by declaring his intention to run for president in 2027, with a message – history beckons.
The governor, whose ambition has been a matter of speculations for months now and who had teamed up with forces angling to force President Bola Tinubu, out of power, told a teeming crowd in Ibadan on Thursday that time had come to reset Nigeria.
At a mega-rally to announce the alliance between the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), and the Allied Peoples’ Movement, (APM), Makinde, expressed worry over the dwindling fortunes of Nigerians, vowing to engage Nigerians to end the drift.
Hear him: “Without a multi-party system, there is no democracy. Where is our multi-party? Where do we go from here? We have been pushed to the wall.
“They calculated and self-opposition cannot unite but I am here to say that the opposition is the everyday Nigerian. This is the time for all us to ensure Nigeria works for us. This is the time to confront it fears. It is time to engage as citizens and not spectators.
“For the opposition political parties, this is the time to unite and work in unity and give our nation the much reset it needs. The time to reset Nigeria is now. Ibadan is the city of warriors. The first grand alliance is formed. The PDP and APM is formed. This handshake will allow us to field candidates from presidency to state Assembly. And so, I declare my candidacy for office of the president of Nigeria.”
Eyo Ekpe, a professor of cardiothoracic surgery at the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital (UUTH), on Wednesday, gave a detailed account on how operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) manhandled him on Monday.
He told reporters that he was at sea on why he should fall victim to the assault against his person and eventually arrested given that was not right person directly involved in the information the agency sought.
Some operatives of the EFCC who invaded the hospital, had whisked Ekpe away after firing teargas to scare away the workers, patients and visitors to the hospital, following what appeared like a fracas the ensued over what it claimed was a routine duty in the facility.
Ekpe, Deputy Chairman of the hospital’s Medical Advisory Committee (MAC), described how an operative had first entered his office to make inquiries on why the hospital was yet to give a response to an EFCC inquiry over a medical report linked to a suspect facing trial.
He detailed how he briefed the operative that the said response was being prepared and even went ahead to show him the draft of a letter in that regard, which needed to go through the gamut of official endorsement before being released.
Hear him: “The head of that internal medicine department looked at the report and also discovered that the name of the doctor that signed the report is not a member of staff of that department.
“I had prepared prepared a response to the EFCC on Monday, May 11, 2026, based on the findings. When the EFCC operative visited my office the next morning to collect the document, I told him that the response was ready in draft. I even showed him the draft, but told him that the document still needed approval from the Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the hospital before it could be officially signed and released.
“He pretended to have accepted that. He left, but later later returned with another armed operative and informed me that I was under arrest. I asked him why. I was not the one that issued the medical report. My name is not on the medical report. The report was not issued from my unit.
“But he said I would get the answer when I get to their office. I then asked him to at least wait for my staff member who I sent on an errand before joining them. But they refused.
“They started pushing me. They dragged me out of the office. Then I began to cry while they were dragging me. They had warned me not to speak. They had taken my phone. My cry as they were dragging me, attracted the workers to the scene, who enquired what was going on, but because they ordered me not to speak, I couldn’t say anything. They had their guns.
The members of staff of the hospital initially blocked them from taking me away. They then made a call. After that I saw many masked and armed men came violently, broke the protector, threatening the people that were around and people ran away.
“They picked some staff that were still by me. they dragged me and other staff, five of us into their van downstairs. By that time they discovered that the gate of the hospital were locked. So, they drove towards the gate and packed and the commotion continued. We were inside the van.
“I was so emotionally and psychologically traumatised that I couldn’t even look out of the vehicle to see what was happening outside. But I know that teargas and live bullets were shot. That’s all I can say for now.”
Joyce Abdulmalik, of the Federal High Court, Abuja, heard on Wednesday, how Zenith Bank raised alarm over the huge transaction in one of its branches by Abubakar Malami, former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice (AGF-MoJ).
The bank said it immediately filed a Suspicious Transaction Report (STR) in respect to the transactions, during its appearance in the ongoing trial of Malami, his wife, and son over allegation of massive looting of funds belonging to the Federal Government during his tenure.
Mashelia Bata, a compliance officer with the bank, who appeared as witness in the case, where Malami, et al, are facing a 16-count charge bordering on alleged money laundering to the tune of N8.7 billion, to which they pleaded not guilty, gave the testimony while being questioned on the bank’s roles in the matter.
Details of the testimony conveyed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), stated how the compliance officer who was cross-examined by Adebayo Adedeji, lawyer to the defendants admitted that the deposits in the account statements complied with the guidelines of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Arguments had stretched when Adedeji, opposed Jibrin Okutepa (SAN), lawyer to the EFCC, who had asked the witness to explain the meaning of a suspicious transaction report, stressing that there was no ambiguity in the term.
However, Okutepa, in response, maintained that section 215(3) of the Evidence Act did not preclude him from re-examining the witness while urging the court to allow the question for proper explanation.
After Abdulmalik, agreed and overruled Adedeji, the witness told the court that banks were required to alert the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) about fund deposits coming in a repetitive pattern, adding: “Any deposition of funds seen in a pattern or repetitive, you must escalate it to the NFIU.”
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