JERUSALEM

The Israeli army deployed a fourth division on Tuesday for its ongoing ground invasion of southern Lebanon.

A military statement said the army’s 146th Reserve Division began ground operations in the western sector of southern Lebanon.

Three other divisions -- the 98th, 36th, and 91st -- are already operating in the central and eastern sectors of southern Lebanon.

Israel has mounted massive airstrikes across Lebanon against what it claims Hezbollah targets since Sept. 23, killing more than 1,250 people, injuring 3,618 others, and displacing more than 1.2 million people.

The aerial campaign was an escalation in yearlong cross-border warfare between Israel and Hezbollah since the start of Tel Aviv’s brutal offensive on the Gaza Strip that has killed nearly 42,000 people, mostly women and children, since a Hamas attack last year.

Despite international warnings that the Middle East region was on the brink of a regional war amid Israel’s relentless attacks on Gaza and Lebanon, Tel Aviv expanded the conflict by launching on Oct. 1 a ground invasion into southern Lebanon.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar in Ankara