Hezbollah clashes with Israeli troops crossing into Lebanon, killing at least eight
Hezbollah said Wednesday it clashed with Israeli soldiers who tried to infiltrate into Lebanon, and also targeted Israeli troops across the border.
Hezbollah fighters confronted "an Israeli enemy infantry force that tried to infiltrate into the village of Adaysseh... and clashed with them... and forced them to withdraw", a statement said. Hezbollah fighters later clashed with troops who crossed into Maroun al-Ras, "inflicting casualties among them."
Hezbollah "is engaged in clashes with the Israeli enemy's soldiers who infiltrated the village of Maroun al-Ras from the east", Hezbollah said, adding that the clashes were "ongoing".
Hezbollah also said its fighters targeted "a large infantry force" in Misgav Am across the border with "rockets and artillery", as well as troop gatherings in four other locations, one with Burkan rockets.
The Lebanese army said Israeli soldiers made a brief incursion into south Lebanon Wednesday.
"Israeli enemy forces breached the Blue Line by approximately 400 meters into Lebanese territory" in two areas, "then withdrew a short time later", an army statement on X said, referring to the demarcation line between Lebanon and Israel.
- Eight Israeli soldiers killed -
Eight Israeli soldiers, including three officers, were killed in combat in Lebanon, the army said Wednesday, following an incursion by the Israel army across the border earlier this week to target Hezbollah positions.
"Captain Eitan Itzhak Oster, aged 22... fell during combat in Lebanon," the military said in a statement, later adding that seven other soldiers were killed.
The seven soldiers were killed in two separate incidents, the military said, without elaborating. Seven other troops were injured, two of them severely, the Israeli army said, while Israeli media reported that 39 Israeli soldiers have been injured.
Israel since last week has been heavily bombarding Lebanon, particularly the south.
The Israeli army on Wednesday called for the evacuation of additional villages in southern Lebanon, a day after it announced the launch of ground operations.
- Hezbollah detonates bombs targeting troops -
Hezbollah said it targeted two Israeli units with explosive devices near two southern border villages Wednesday.
"As the Israeli enemy army tried to sneak around the village of Yaroun... (Hezbollah) fighters surprised them by detonating an explosive device," it said, reporting Israeli casualties.
Hezbollah later targeted an infantry unit with an explosive device as it entered a house in Kfarkela.
- Hezbollah destroys 3 Israeli tanks -
Hezbollah said it destroyed three Israeli tanks on Wednesday as they advanced towards the Lebanese border village of Maroun al-Ras.
The group said it "destroyed three Merkava tanks with rockets as they advanced towards Maroun al-Ras," where they reported clashes with Israeli troops earlier in the day.
- 'Heroic battle' -
Earlier in the day, Hezbollah’s chief spokesman, Mohammed Afif, told reporters touring sites of Israeli airstrikes in Beirut’s southern suburbs that Hezbollah had “fought a heroic battle this morning” in the southern villages of Adaysseh and Maroun al-Ras.
Afif promised the destroyed areas would be rebuild “better and more beautiful than they were before” — echoing what former Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike last week, had said in 2006, when the militant group fought a monthlong war with Israel.
