Beachgoers say they are unafraid but in this one-time ‘capital of hostages’, Lebanon is now main talking point

Air raid sirens blared in Tel Aviv on Wednesday morning as, for the first time, Hezbollah fired a surface-to-surface missile at the coastal city. A few minutes after the incident, beachgoers flooded the bustling promenade, playing beach volley, cycling and kite surfing.

“Was there an attack this morning?” asked Eyal Kadosh, 31, confused, while resting on a bench with a friend after their daily workout. “Well, I’m here, what should happen will happen anyway.”

A land incursion would be a far more complex undertaking than the intelligence-led strikes pursued so far

No two wars are alike, even those fought between the same two combatants on the same terrain. But many of the challenges remain the same.

Israel’s most senior military commander has told troops that airstrikes will continue inside Lebanon as the Israeli military prepares for a possible ground operation. If its forces do cross the northern border they are likely to face obstacles they have seen before.

Israel hits targets in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah fires rockets into northern Israel and Lebanese PM heads to UN

• Middle East crisis – latest news updates

Thousands of Lebanese people fled the continuing bombing in the country’s south on Tuesday as Israel said it was conducting “extensive strikes” on Hezbollah targets, including on the southern suburbs of Beirut, for the second day in a row and third time this week.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, vowed to maintain the offensive against Hezbollah and said the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was leading Lebanon “to the edge of the abyss” while world leaders meeting at the United Nations general assembly in New York called for the de-escalation of the conflict, which has claimed hundreds of lives this week.

Israel says it has hit 1,300 targets in escalating conflict with Hezbollah, as tens of thousands flee their homes

At least 492 people have been killed and 1,645 injured, Lebanon’s health ministry has said, after a wave of Israeli airstrikes on alleged Hezbollah targets that left the country with its highest daily death toll since the end of the 1975-90 civil war.

Tens of thousands of people fled from south Lebanese towns and villages along the main road towards the capital, Beirut, in Israel’s most intense barrage in nearly a year of cross-border clashes, as sirens were also heard in the northern Israeli city of Haifa. The Lebanese health ministry said 35 children and 58 women were among those killed.

Both sides engage in significant escalation in conflict, prompting UN to say region is on ‘brink of imminent catastrophe’

Hezbollah has said it has entered an “open-ended battle of reckoning” with Israel after launching a series of rocket attacks on the north of the country as world powers implored both sides to step back from the brink of all-out war.

In a significant escalation of the conflict, Israeli warplanes carried out their most intense bombardment in almost a year across southern Lebanon, while Hezbollah responded with its deepest rocket attacks into Israel since the start of the Gaza war.