Israel stepped up its offensive against Iran-backed militant group Hizbollah on Wednesday even as the region braced for its response to a missile attack by Tehran that intensified fears of an all-out war.
The Israel Defense Forces bombarded Hizbollah’s strongholds in southern Beirut, while elite commando units faced fierce resistance from the group’s fighters as they breached the Lebanese border.
Eight Israeli soldiers were killed and several injured, the Israeli military said, as the IDF’s “targeted” raids into Lebanese territory carried into a second day.
Hizbollah said it had engaged Israeli troops in at least three different locations along the border, killing and wounding several.
Israeli strikes on Wednesday night pounded areas of central and southern Beirut, killing five and wounding at least one other, according to Lebanon’s health ministry, which said 46 people had been killed and 85 wounded over the previous 24 hours.
The escalating battles came as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed retaliation against Tehran after dozens of missiles were fired into Israel.
“Iran made a big mistake — and it will pay for it,” he said on Tuesday. “Whoever attacks us, we will attack them.”
The surprise missile attack by Iran, which it said was in response to Israeli assassinations of senior leaders of Hizbollah and Hamas, has brought the region even closer to an all-out conflict as Israel escalates its offensive against Tehran’s proxies.
In the past two weeks, Israel has assassinated Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hizbollah, launched waves of strikes against the group in Lebanon, bombed a port controlled by Houthi rebels in Yemen, and been blamed for explosions in Syria.
Israeli forces continued the ground offensive they began against Hizbollah in southern Lebanon on Tuesday.
Its air force also struck Damascus on Wednesday afternoon, killing three civilians, according to Syrian state media.
Hizbollah on Wednesday said its fighters had repelled a group of Israeli troops “trying to penetrate” the southern community of Odeisseh, close to the border.
Hours later, Hizbollah said it had engaged in clashes with Israeli troops about 20km south-west of Odeisseh, and detonated an explosive device that killed and injured a group of Israeli troops in the vicinity of the village of Yaroun.
Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati pleaded for both sides to agree a ceasefire, saying 1.2mn people had been displaced by the Israeli attacks on the militant group.
“Stop fighting. We don’t need more blood. We don’t need more destruction,” he said in an online briefing on Wednesday evening.
Only a handful of the Iranian missiles slipped past Israel’s sophisticated air defences on Tuesday, including one that appeared to have struck near the headquarters of Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence service.
One death was reported in the Palestinian city of Jericho, where a man was struck by debris from an intercepted missile.
A person briefed on the situation said Iran had targeted military and intelligence infrastructure near Tel Aviv and other facilities elsewhere in the country.
Iran said the strikes were retaliation for Israel’s targeted killings across the region, including Nasrallah on Friday, and threatened to respond if Israel retaliated.
Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said in a post on X on Wednesday: “Our action is concluded unless the Israeli regime decides to invite further retaliation. In that scenario, our response will be stronger and more powerful.”
Araghchi said he had spoken to his UK, German and French counterparts, warning that while Iran did not seek war, it was “not afraid of it”. He also urged “any third party” to refrain from intervening, a clear reference to the US.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday appeared to blame the US and European countries for the escalation in the region.
“The cause of all regional problems is the presence of those very parties who falsely advocate peace and stability in the region,” he said, without making any reference to Iran’s missile strike on Israel.
Hizbollah spokesperson Mohammed Afif on Wednesday said its conflict with Israel would be fought “in rounds”. “If you have defeated us in this round, it is only the first,” he said.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz condemned Iran’s missile attack on Israel on Wednesday, saying Tehran risked “setting the whole region on fire”. “We must prevent that at all costs,” he said. “Hizbollah and Iran must immediately stop their attacks on Israel.”
The depth of Israel’s ground incursion into Lebanon remained unclear more than a day after the IDF said it was conducting targeted raids just across its northern border.
The IDF said it was sending additional forces to join what it said were “limited, localised, targeted raids” into Lebanese territory, including troops from the Golani infantry brigade and a separate armoured brigade.
Israeli troops have been conducting covert raids into the area for nearly a year since Hizbollah began firing into northern Israel a day after Hamas’s October 7 attack.
In oil markets, the international benchmark Brent crude was up 2.2 per cent at $75.14 a barrel on Wednesday, while the US benchmark West Texas Intermediate was up 2.4 per cent at $71.52 a barrel.
Prices had risen as much as 5 per cent after the Iranian attack on Tuesday night.
Additional reporting by William Sandlund in Hong Kong, Bita Ghaffari in Tehran, Heba Saleh in Beirut, Felicia Schwartz in New York and Henry Foy in Brussels
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