What is the latest on Israel’s operations in Lebanon?
Hezbollah said Wednesday that its fighters clashed with Israeli troops near the border. That would mark the first ground combat since the start of the incursion.
The Israeli military said ground forces backed by airstrikes had killed militants in “close-range engagements” without saying where.
Israel said Tuesday that it had launched limited ground incursions into Lebanon to locate and destroy Hezbollah infrastructure, but there are signs that a wider offensive is planned.
It said eight Israeli soldiers had been killed in the fighting, with seven killed in two separate attacks. Earlier, Israel earlier announced that a 22-year-old captain in a commando brigade had been killed. It gave few other details.
Israel has moved thousands of troops, tanks and artillery to the border in recent days, and it has warned residents to evacuate around 50 villages and towns in a U.N.-declared buffer zone in southern Lebanon, telling them to relocate to more than 60 kilometres (37 miles) north of the border.
In its first confirmation of the incursion, the Lebanese army said Israeli forces had advanced some 400 metres (yards) across the border but withdrew “after a short period.”
The sides have continued to trade strikes in recent days, with Israeli warplanes hitting Beirut and artillery firing at targets along the border. Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets, missiles and drones into Israel since last October, when it began attacking Israel in support of the Palestinians and its Hamas allies in Gaza.