An Israeli ground incursion into Lebanon to fight Hezbollah militants left eight Israeli soldiers dead on Wednesday, while the region braced for further escalation as Israel vowed to respond to the Iranian ballistic missile attack the day before.
The Israeli army said that seven soldiers were killed in two separate attacks, without going into details. These deaths came after a previous announcement of the first Israeli killed in combat in Lebanon since the beginning of the incursion – a 22-year-old captain in a commando brigade. Seven other soldiers, including a combat medic, were injured.
Together, these attacks were some of the deadliest against Israeli forces in months. These announcements came on the eve of the Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashana).
In Gaza, where nearly a year of conflict has continued to expand with no end in sight, Palestinian medical officials said Israeli ground and air operations in the hard-hit city killed at least 51 people, including women and children.
Israel has continued to strike what it says are militant targets across Gaza, nearly a year after a Hamas attack on October 7 that sparked the conflict.
The escalation on multiple fronts has raised fears of a broader conflict in the Middle East that could draw more from Iran – which supports Hezbollah and Hamas – as well as the United States, which has rushed to send military assets to the region to support Israel.
The official Syrian news agency (SANA) said that an Israeli air strike hit a residential building in Damascus on Wednesday evening, killing three people and wounding at least three others. An Associated Press journalist at the scene said the missile appeared to target the basement of a four-story apartment building.
There was no immediate comment from Israel, which frequently strikes targets linked to Iran or allied groups in Syria, but rarely claims responsibility for strikes.
Hezbollah says its fighters clashed with Israeli forces
Hezbollah, widely considered the most powerful militant group in the region, said its fighters clashed with Israeli forces in two places inside Lebanon near the border. The Israeli army said that ground forces, supported by air strikes, killed militants in “close-range clashes,” without specifying their location.
Israeli media reported that infantry and tank units were operating in southern Lebanon after the army sent thousands of additional troops and artillery to the border.
The two attacks announced on Wednesday followed other attacks on Israeli forces earlier in the year. In June, an explosion in southern Gaza killed eight Israeli soldiers. In January, 21 Israeli soldiers were killed in a single attack launched by Palestinian militants in central Gaza. It is the bloodiest attack on Israeli forces since the outbreak of the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
Hezbollah also said it fired surface-to-air missiles at an Israeli military helicopter over Beit Hillel in northern Israel near the border. The group did not say whether the helicopter was hit, and there was no immediate comment from the Israeli army.
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The Lebanese army said that Israeli forces advanced about 400 meters across the border and withdrew “after a short period,” in its first confirmation of the incursion.
The Israeli military warned residents in about 50 villages and towns to evacuate north of the Awali River, about 60 kilometers (37 miles) from the border and far beyond the northern edge of the UN-declared zone intended to serve as a buffer zone. Between Israel and Hezbollah after the 2006 war. Hundreds of thousands have already fled their homes.
Israel said it would continue to strike Hezbollah until it was safe for the return of tens of thousands of its citizens who were displaced from their homes near the Lebanese border. Hezbollah pledged to continue firing rockets at Israel until a ceasefire is reached in Gaza with Hamas.
Israeli raids led to the deaths of more than a thousand people in Lebanon during the past two weeks, nearly a quarter of whom were women and children, according to the Ministry of Health.
Meanwhile, Israel criticized the United Nations on Wednesday, declaring Secretary-General Antonio Guterres persona non grata, or banned from entering the country. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz accused him of failing to unequivocally condemn the Iranian missile attack that occurred on Tuesday evening.
Guterres issued a brief statement after the barrage, saying: “I condemn the expansion of the conflict in the Middle East, with escalation after escalation. This must stop. “We definitely need a ceasefire.”
This step deepens the already widespread dispute between Israel and the United Nations.
Palestinians describe massive raid in Gaza
The Gaza Ministry of Health said that at least 51 people were killed and 82 others were injured in the Khan Yunis operation, which began early Wednesday. Records at the European Hospital showed that seven women and 12 children, as young as 22 months old, were among the dead.
Another 23 people, including two children, were killed in separate raids across Gaza, according to local hospitals.
The Israeli army did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Residents said that Israel carried out intensive air strikes while its ground forces carried out an incursion into three neighborhoods in Khan Yunis. Mahmoud Al-Razzad, whose four relatives were among the dead, described severe devastation and said first responders faced difficulties reaching the destroyed homes.
“The explosions and shelling were massive,” he told the Associated Press. “Many people are believed to be under the rubble, and no one can pull them out.”
Israel launched a weeks-long attack earlier this year on Khan Yunis, destroying much of Gaza’s second-largest city. Over the course of the war, Israeli forces repeatedly returned to areas of Gaza where militants regrouped.
On October 7, Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took about 250 hostage. About 100 of them have not yet been released, and about 65 of them are believed to be alive.
The Israeli retaliatory attack led to the deaths of more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to the Ministry of Health, which did not mention the number of fighters but said that slightly more than half of them were women and children. The army says it killed more than 17,000 militants without providing evidence.
Iran launches missiles to retaliate for attacks on its militant allies
Iran fired at least 180 missiles at Israel on Tuesday in what it said was retaliation for a series of devastating strikes by Israel in recent weeks against Hezbollah, which has been firing rockets at Israel since the start of the Gaza conflict in solidarity with Hamas.
Israelis rushed to shelters as air raid sirens sounded and the orange glow of missiles flashed in the night sky.
The Israeli military said it intercepted several incoming Iranian missiles, although some landed in central and southern Israel and two people were slightly injured by shrapnel.
Several rockets landed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, with one killing a Palestinian worker from Gaza who had been stranded in the area since the outbreak of the conflict.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to respond, saying that Iran “committed a big mistake tonight and will pay the price for it.”
US President Joe Biden said that his administration “fully supports” Israel and that he is discussing with his aides what the appropriate response should be.
However, Biden said he would not support a strike on Iranian nuclear sites as Israel pledges to respond to a ballistic missile attack.
“The answer is no,” Biden said in an interview with reporters when asked whether he would support such retaliation after Iran fired about 180 missiles at Israel.
Biden’s comments came after he and his fellow G7 leaders spoke by phone on Wednesday to discuss coordinating new sanctions on Iran.
He also reaffirmed the solidarity of the United States and its full support for Israel and its people.
Iran said it would respond to any violation of its sovereignty with stronger strikes on Israeli infrastructure.
Iran said it fired missiles on Tuesday in response to the attacks that killed leaders of Hezbollah, Hamas and the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. She referred to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Guards General Abbas Nilforoushan, who were killed in an Israeli air strike last week in Beirut. He also mentioned Ismail Haniyeh, a senior Hamas leader, who was assassinated in Tehran in a suspected Israeli attack in July.
-With files from Colleen Long and Aamer Madhani
Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Wafaa al-Shurafa in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Jack Jeffrey in Jerusalem, and Melanie Liedman in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report.
