ISRAELI SOLDIERS KILLED
The military has bombarded Hezbollah’s south Beirut stronghold, having dealt a significant blow to the group last week by killing its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in a massive strike.
A day after its military said it was conducting “targeted ground raids” in south Lebanon, Israel reported the first death of a soldier in the Israel-Hezbollah war, a toll that later rose to eight dead.
Hezbollah said it had forced Israeli soldiers to retreat, targeted an Israeli unit with explosives, and destroyed three Merkava tanks with rockets as they advanced on Maroun al-Ras village.
The Israeli military said it staged two brief incursions into Lebanon, ordering residents to flee more than 20 areas.
The military released footage that it said showed soldiers inside Lebanon, moving through villages and mountainous areas on foot, and announced it had deployed a second division to support the fighting.
Explosions in the Lebanese capital were audible kilometres away and came as the Israeli military ordered residents to leave multiple parts of densely populated southern Beirut in the early hours of Thursday.
Lebanon’s health ministry said 46 people were killed and 85 others injured by Israeli strikes over the past 24 hours.
Earlier, Lebanon’s disaster management agency said 1,928 people had been killed in Lebanon since Israel and Hezbollah began trading cross-border fire after the Gaza war erupted nearly a year ago.
IRAN MISSILE ATTACK
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said an Israeli strike in Damascus killed four people, including Hassan Jaafar al-Qasir, son-in-law of the slain Hezbollah leader.
Hours after Israel announced the start of ground operations in Lebanon, Iran fired some 200 missiles, including hypersonic weapons, sending frightened Israeli civilians hurrying to shelters.
Israel said it intercepted most of the missiles. Two people were wounded by shrapnel and a school building was damaged.
The Israeli military said several Iranian missiles struck inside air force bases without causing any casualties or damage.
In Jericho in the occupied West Bank, a Palestinian was killed when “pieces of a rocket fell from the sky and hit him”, the city’s governor Hussein Hamayel said.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant warned that “those who attack the state of Israel, pay a heavy price”.
Iran’s armed forces chief of staff, Major General Mohammad Bagheri, threatened to attack “with bigger intensity” if Israel made good on its pledge to retaliate.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian also warned of a “stronger” response, though he stressed Iran was “not looking for war”.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said the missiles were fired in retaliation for Nasrallah’s killing alongside its Quds Force commander Abbas Nilforoushan, as well as for the death of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in a Tehran bombing in July.
