EIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) – Israel’s airstrikes in Lebanon to fight Hezbollah terrorists left eight Israeli soldiers dead on Wednesday, and the region is expected to escalate as Israel vows to retaliate for Iran’s ballistic missile attack in a day. the previous one.
The Israeli military said seven soldiers were killed in two separate incidents, without elaborating. The attack was one of the deadliest for Israeli soldiers in recent months.
Seven other soldiers were injured, including a doctor. Earlier, the army announced that a 22-year-old captain in the commando brigade was killed in Lebanon, the first Israeli military death since the attack began.
The announcements came on the eve of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year.
In Gaza, where a nearly year-long war that sparked chaos suddenly resumed, Israeli ground and air operations in the heavily-hit city killed at least 51 people, including women and children, Palestinian medical officials said.
Israel has continued to strike what it says are military casualties across Gaza nearly a year after an October 7 attack by Hamas started the war.
The multi-stakeholder escalation has raised fears of a wider war in the Middle East that could also draw in Iran – which supports Hezbollah and Hamas – and the United States, which has rushed military equipment to the region to support Israel.
Hezbollah says its soldiers are fighting Israeli soldiers
Hezbollah, widely seen as the most powerful armed group in the region, said its fighters clashed with Israeli forces at two locations inside Lebanon near the border. Israel’s military said ground forces backed by airstrikes killed the soldiers in a “close encounter” without specifying where.
Israeli media reported that infantry and tanks were operating in southern Lebanon after the army sent thousands of soldiers and weapons to the border.
Hezbollah said its soldiers wounded and killed a group of Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon after detonating an explosive device, but the army did not elaborate on the number of dead and wounded.
The two attacks were announced on Wednesday following another attack by Israeli forces earlier this year. In June, an explosion in southern Gaza killed eight Israeli soldiers. In January, 21 Israeli soldiers were killed in a single attack by Palestinian terrorists in central Gaza. the worst single attack by Israeli forces since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
The Lebanese army said Israeli forces advanced 400 meters across the border and withdrew “after a short time,” their first confirmation of the attack.
The Israeli military has warned people 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 their 2006 war. Hundreds of thousands have already fled their homes as the conflict escalates.
Israel has said it will continue to attack Hezbollah until it is safe for tens of thousands of its citizens who have been driven from their homes near the Lebanese border to return. Hezbollah has vowed to continue firing rockets at Israel until the cease fire in Gaza and Hamas.
Israeli strikes have killed more than 1,000 people in Lebanon in the past two weeks, nearly a quarter of whom are women and children, according to the Ministry of Health.
Meanwhile, Israel lashed out at the United Nations on Wednesday, announcing that Secretary-General António Guterres is persona non grata, or banned from entering the country. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz accused him of failing to unequivocally condemn Iran’s missile attack on Tuesday night.
Guterres issued a brief statement after the upheaval that read: “I condemn the escalation of conflict in the Middle East, escalation after escalation. This must stop. We really need a ceasefire.”
The move deepens already wide-ranging tensions between Israel and the United Nations.
The Palestinians describe a major attack in Gaza
The Gaza Health Ministry said at least 51 people were killed and 82 injured during the operation in Khan Younis that began on Wednesday. European Hospital records show seven women and 12 children, as young as 22 months old, were among those killed.
Another 23 people, including two children, were killed in different strikes in Gaza, according to local hospitals.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Residents say Israel carried out heavy airstrikes as ground forces raided three areas in Khan Younis. Mahmoud al-Razd, who had four relatives among the dead, described the destruction of property and said first responders struggled to reach the destroyed homes.
“The explosions and bombings were huge,” he told the Associated Press. “Many people are thought to be under the rubble, and no one can pick them up.”
Israel launched a weeks-long offensive earlier this year in Khan Younis that left much of Gaza’s second-largest city in ruins. As the war continued, Israeli forces returned several times to the Gaza Strip as the forces regrouped.
On October 7, Hamas-led forces killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and kidnapped about 250 people. Of the 100 who have not been released, about 65 are believed to be still alive.
Israel’s retaliation has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to the Ministry of Health, which does not say how many were soldiers but says a little more than half were women and children. The military claims to have killed more than 17,000 soldiers, without providing evidence.
Iran fires missiles in retaliation for terrorist attacks
Iran launched at least 180 ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday in what it said was retaliation for a series of deadly attacks by Israel in recent weeks against Hezbollah, which has been firing rockets into Israel since the Gaza war began in collaboration with Hamas.
Israelis seek bomb shelters as air raid sirens blare and the orange glow of missiles circle the night sky.
The Israeli military said it intercepted most of the incoming Iranian missiles, although some landed in central and southern Israel and two people were slightly injured by the explosives.
Several missiles landed in the Israeli-controlled West Bank, one of which killed a Palestinian worker from Gaza who had been trapped in the area since the outbreak of war.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed revenge, saying Iran “made a big mistake tonight and will pay for it.”
US President Joe Biden said his administration “fully supports” Israel and that he is discussing with aides what the appropriate response should be.
Iran has said it will respond to any violation of its sovereignty with the heaviest strikes on Israeli infrastructure.
Iran said it fired Tuesday’s missiles in retaliation for attacks that killed leaders of Hezbollah, Hamas and its Revolutionary Guard. It refers to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Guard Gen. Abbas Nilforushan, both of whom were killed in an Israeli airstrike last week in Beirut. It also mentioned Ismail Haniyeh, a senior Hamas leader who was killed in Tehran in an alleged attack by Israel in July.
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