BEIRUT – Israel made a two-pronged move on Wednesday, following an airstrike in Lebanon against Hezbollah that left eight Israeli soldiers dead and strikes in Gaza that killed dozens, including children. As Israel vowed to retaliate for Iran’s missile attack the previous day, the region was bracing for further escalation.
Iran, which backs Hezbollah and the Hamas terrorist group that runs the Gaza Strip, launched a barrage of missiles at Israel on Tuesday night, another escalation in the tit-for-tat cycle that is bringing the Middle East closer to regional war. Israel warned that the attack would have “consequences”.
The Israeli military said seven soldiers were killed in two Hezbollah attacks in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, without elaborating. The death followed the previous announcement of the death of Israel’s first soldier in Lebanon since the attack began – a 22-year-old captain in the army. Seven other soldiers were injured.
Collectively, the deaths announced on the eve of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year, were some of the worst military-sponsored tragedies in months.
In Gaza, where a nearly year-long war has suddenly erupted into violence, Israeli ground and air strikes in the territory’s second-largest city of Khan Younis have killed at least 51 people, including women and children, Palestinian medical officials said. .
On Wednesday night, Israeli airstrikes hit a building near the Lebanese capital, the second time Israel has attacked central Beirut this week. At least six people were killed and seven were injured in the Bashoura residential area.
Residents reported a sulfur-like smell following the attack, and Lebanon’s National News Agency accused Israel of using internationally banned phosphorus bombs. Human rights groups have in the past accused Israel of using white phosphorus shells on towns and villages in southern Lebanon.
Several strikes were also reported in areas south of Beirut in areas evacuated by the Israeli army. The area hit in central Beirut was not included in those warnings.
Recent actions on many fronts have raised fears of a wider conflict that could drag Iran and the United States, which has rushed military assets to the region to support Israel.
Meanwhile, the Syrian state news agency SANA said an Israeli airstrike hit a residential building in Damascus on Wednesday night, killing three people and injuring at least three others. An Associated Press reporter who was at the scene said that the missile appeared to be aimed at the basement of a four-story building.
There was no immediate comment from Israel, which often hits targets linked to Iran or allied groups in Syria, but rarely claims strikes.
Hezbollah says its soldiers are fighting Israeli soldiers
Hezbollah, widely seen as Iran’s 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.
The death of the Israeli soldier was announced on Wednesday following another military loss 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 deadliest single attack on Israel since Israel’s war with Hamas broke out nearly a year ago.
The Israeli army has warned residents of 50 villages and towns in Lebanon to evacuate north of the Awali River, some 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.
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 into Israel until the ceasefire in Gaza ceases.
Israeli strikes have killed more than 1,000 people in Lebanon in the past two weeks, nearly a quarter of them women and children, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Health.
Meanwhile, Israel lashed out at the United Nations, declaring Secretary-General António Guterres persona non grata and denying him entry into the country. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz accused him of failing to unequivocally condemn Iran’s missile attack on Tuesday night. 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 early 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 has carried out heavy airstrikes as ground forces raided three villages in Khan Younis. Mahmoud al-Razd, whose four relatives were killed, described the destruction of property and said responders struggled to reach the destroyed houses.
“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 the city in ruins. Israeli forces have returned several times to the Gaza Strip as the army has regrouped.
On October 7, Hamas-led forces killed around 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in an attack in southern Israel and captured around 250 people. 100 are still in custody, about 65 are believed to be alive.
Israeli retaliation has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians but says more than half were women and children. The Israeli army 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 missiles at Israel on Tuesday in what it said was retaliation for recent Israeli strikes against Hezbollah, which has been firing rockets into Israel since the Gaza war began in collaboration with Hamas.
Israelis sought bomb shelters as air raid sirens blared and the orange glow of missiles circled the night sky.
Israel’s military said it intercepted most of the incoming Iranian missiles, although some landed in central and southern Israel. Several arrived in the West Bank occupied by Israel, and killed a Palestinian man.
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 the missiles in retaliation for an attack 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 listed Ismail Haniyeh, a senior Hamas leader who was killed in Tehran in an alleged Israeli attack in July.
– Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press Correspondents Wafaa Shurafa in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip; Jack Jeffrey in Jerusalem and Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report.