By Maya Gebeily, Alexander Cornwell and Jana Choukeir BEIRUT/JERUSALEM, March 3 (Reuters) - Lebanon was pulled deeper into the war in the Middle East on Tuesday as the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah launched missiles at Israel for a second consecutive day and Israel sent troops into the south and carried out waves of air strikes.

The Israeli military said troops advanced to protect border towns from Hezbollah attacks, spurring fears that the government is weighing a wider ground war.

The American University of Beirut has long been a haven for cats abandoned in times if war or crisis, but in recent years the feline population has grown dramatically.

An Israeli airstrike targeted the "Al-Manar" channel building in the Haret Hreik area of Beirut’s southern suburbs, following a prior warning issued by the Israeli army about the impending strike. A widely circulated photo showed black smoke rising from the site following the bombing.

On Monday, the Israeli Navy conducted an intelligence-based strike in the area of Beirut and eliminated Reza Khuza'i , the head of Hezbollah's weapons build-up and the Chief of Staff of the Lebanon Corps in the Iranian Quds Force.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that the U.S. and Israel's war against Iran may take "some time" but it