Israel reports 8 combat deaths as troops battle Hezbollah in Lebanon

BEIRUT (AP) — Israel pushed forward on two fronts Wednesday, carrying out a ground attack against Hezbollah in Lebanon that left eight Israeli soldiers dead and carrying out attacks in Gaza that killed dozens, including children. When Israel promised to take revenge Iran's ballistic missile attack A day earlier, the region was preparing for further escalation.

Iran, which backs both Hezbollah and the Hamas militants who rule the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, fired dozens of rockets into Israel on Tuesday evening, a further escalation in a contest that is pushing the Middle East closer to regional war. Israel warned that the attack would have “impact.”

The Israeli military said seven soldiers were killed in two separate Hezbollah attacks in southern Lebanon, without elaborating. These deaths followed an earlier announcement of the first Israeli combat death in Lebanon since the raid began – a 22-year-old commando brigade captain. Another seven soldiers were wounded.

Taken together, the deaths reported on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, were among the worst casualties Israel forces have suffered in months.

In Gaza, where the almost year-long war started expanding conflict Israeli ground and air operations in a hard-hit town killed at least 51 people, including women and children, according to Palestinian medical officials.

Israel has continued to carry out attacks on alleged militant targets across the Gaza Strip nearly a year later The Hamas attack on October 7 sparked the war.

Recent actions on multiple fronts have raised fears of a larger conflict that could involve both Iran and the United States has sent military assets to the region in support of Israel.

The Syrian state news agency SANA reported that an Israeli airstrike hit a residential building in Damascus on Wednesday evening, killing three people and wounding at least three others. An Associated Press journalist at the scene said the rocket appeared to hit the ground floor of a four-story apartment building.

There was no immediate comment from Israel, which frequently attacks targets linked to Iran or allied groups in Syria but rarely claims the attacks as its own.

Hezbollah says its fighters clashed with Israeli troops

Hezbollah, widely considered the most powerful armed group in the region, said its fighters clashed with Israeli troops in two locations in Lebanon near the border. The Israeli military said ground forces supported by airstrikes killed militants in “close combat operations,” without saying where.

Israeli media reported infantry and armored units operating in southern Lebanon after the military sent thousands of additional troops and artillery to the border.

The deaths announced Wednesday followed additional Israeli military losses earlier 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 militants in the central Gaza Strip. the deadliest single attack on Israeli forces since the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas.

The Lebanese army said Israeli forces advanced about 400 meters (yards) across the border and withdrew “after a short period of time,” the first confirmation of the incursion.

The Israeli military has warned people in and around 50 villages and towns to evacuate north of the Awali River, about 60 kilometers (37 miles) from the border and much further than the northern edge of the Awali River a UN declared zone It was intended to serve as a buffer between Israel and Hezbollah after their 2006 war. Hundreds of thousands have already fled their homes.

Israel has said it will continue attacks on Hezbollah until tens of thousands of its citizens forced from their homes near the Lebanese border can safely return. Hezbollah has vowed to continue firing rockets at Israel until a ceasefire is reached in Gaza.

Israeli attacks have killed more than 1,000 people in Lebanon in the past two weeks, nearly a quarter of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry.

Meanwhile, Israel took strong action against the United Nations, declaring Secretary-General António Guterres persona non grata or banning him from entering the country. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz accused him of not clearly condemning the Iranian missile attack on Tuesday evening.

Guterres released a brief statement after the barrage saying: “I condemn the expansion of the Middle East conflict with one escalation after another. This has to stop. We absolutely need a ceasefire.”

The move deepens the already wide rift between Israel and the United Nations.

Palestinians report massive attack in Gaza

The Gaza Health Ministry said at least 51 people were killed and 82 injured in the operation in Khan Younis, which began early Wednesday. Records at the European Hospital showed that those killed included seven women and 12 children as young as 22 months old.

According to local hospitals, another 23 people, including two children, were killed in separate attacks across the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Local residents said Israel carried out heavy airstrikes as its ground forces staged an incursion into three quarters of Khan Younis. Mahmoud al-Razd, who had four relatives among those killed, described severe destruction and said first responders struggled to reach the destroyed homes.

“The explosions and shelling were huge,” he told The Associated Press. “It is believed that many people are under the rubble and no one can rescue them.”

Israel conducted a week-long offensive in Khan Younis earlier this year As a result, much of Gaza's second largest city was in ruins. Over the course of the war, Israeli forces repeatedly returned to areas of the Gaza Strip as militants regrouped.

On October 7, Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took about 250 hostages. Around 100 of them have not yet been released, and around 65 of them are still believed to be alive.

According to the Health Ministry, over 41,000 Palestinians were killed in Israel's retaliatory offensive. The Ministry of Health does not say how many were fighters, but says just over half were women and children. The military says it has killed over 17,000 militants without providing evidence.

Iran fires missiles to retaliate attacks on militant allies

Iran has fired at least 180 rockets at Israel in what was seen as retaliation for a series of attacks devastating blows Israel recently landed against Hezbollah, which has been firing rockets at Israel ever since the war in Gaza began in solidarity with Hamas.

Israelis ran to bomb shelters as air raid sirens wailed and the orange glow of rockets flashed across the night sky.

This is what the Israeli military said intercepted many of the incoming Iranian missilesalthough some ended up in central and southern Israel. Several landed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and killed a Palestinian.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed retaliation, 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 his advisers what the appropriate response should be.

Iran said it would respond to any violation of its sovereignty with even more severe attacks on Israeli infrastructure.

Iran said it fired the rockets in retaliation for attacks that killed leaders of Hezbollah, Hamas and its own paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. It referred to it Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah And Guard General Abbas Nilforushanboth were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut last week. It was also mentioned Ismail Haniyeh, a top Hamas leader who was murdered in a suspected Israeli attack in Tehran in July.

___

Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Wafaa Shurafa in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, Jack Jeffrey in Jerusalem and Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report.

___

Follow AP's war coverage at