The Israeli military said eight soldiers have been killed since troops entered Lebanon early Tuesday to carry out a ground offensive against the Shiite group Hezbollah.
Shortly after announcing his first death in Lebanese territory since the 2006 war, identified as soldier Eitan Itzhak Oster, a new military statement included the names of seven other deaths in combat.
The deceased are captains Harel Etinger and Itai Ariel Giat, both 23 years old; Sergeants First Class Noam Barzilay, 22, and Or Mantzur and Nazar Itkin, 21; and Sergeants Ido Broyer and Almken Terefe, also 21.
According to The Times of Israel, Ettinger, Giat, Barzilai, Mantzur, Itkin and Oster were killed in close combat against Hezbollah militants in a town in southern Lebanon, while four other soldiers were wounded.
The other incident, about which the armed forces did not provide further details, ended the lives of Terefe and Broyer and injured a soldier from the Golani brigade, an elite infantry brigade, of which another uniformed man was injured in a fourth incident.
The Army referred for the first time this Wednesday to the development of short-range combat in southern Lebanon, where until now it had only spoken of bombings.
According to a military statement, soldiers from the 98th Division, in cooperation with the air force, eliminated militiamen and dismantled infrastructure in “close-range clashes” and using precision-guided munitions.
“So far, more than 150 infrastructures” have been destroyed in airstrikes, according to the text, including Hezbollah headquarters, weapons storage facilities and rocket launchers.
Also today, Hezbollah announced in a statement, for the first time, clashes against a group of “infiltrated” Israeli soldiers in the southern town of Maron al Ras, close to the common dividing line, and hinted at having caused deaths.
The terrorist group later claimed to have destroyed three Israeli tanks on Wednesday as it advanced toward a Lebanese border town. The group said it “destroyed three Merkava tanks with rockets as they advanced toward the village of Maroun al-Ras,” referring to an area where they reported clashes with Israeli troops earlier in the day.
And shortly before, the Lebanese Army confirmed the presence of Israeli troops about 400 meters from the Blue Line in the areas of Harba Yaron and Bawaba al Eddessa, but said that they had withdrawn shortly after, according to a message on X.
He later added that an Israeli drone attacked one of his units and wounded one of his soldiers in the south. “A soldier was injured by the attack of an Israeli enemy drone while an army unit was working to open the Marjayun-Hasbaya road”, cut by the bombings, declared the Lebanese army in X, two days after announcing the death of one of its soldiers in an Israeli attack.
Likewise, Israel stated that, at this time, its air forces continue to attack Hezbollah “objectives” in Lebanon, such as observation posts and infrastructure on the southern line, and said it had identified the launch of nearly 40 projectiles against the northern region. of Upper Galilee.
According to a military statement, some of the rockets had been intercepted and several had fallen in the area, without causing injuries or deaths. In addition, “suspicious aerial targets” were also intercepted in both the Upper and Western Galilee arriving from Lebanon.
Hezbollah, for its part, claimed responsibility for more than a dozen attacks with rockets, missiles or artillery against positions and congregations of soldiers in different parts of northern Israel, as well as more remote areas such as the city of Haifa.
The Israeli Army announced early Tuesday the start of its ground invasion of Lebanon, which it described as a “limited and localized” incursion into southern Lebanon, although its actual scope and magnitude is still unknown.
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