Israel's military says eight soldiers killed in fighting against ...
Israel's military says eight of its soldiers have been killed in southern Lebanon after forces battled Hezbollah militants, following the start of an Israeli incursion into the country.
The losses of the Israeli soldiers were the deadliest suffered by Israel on the Lebanon front in the past year of border-area clashes.
The soldiers were killed in two separate events, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officials said, without providing details.
The IDF also reported that seven other soldiers had been seriously injured in the incidents.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a condolence video, said: "We are at the height of a difficult war against Iran's Axis of Evil, which wants to destroy us.
"This will not happen because we will stand together and with God's help, we will win together," he said.
Israel's military said about 100 rockets were fired at Israel from Lebanon in about an hour on Wednesday night, local time.
Israeli soldier Captain Eitan Itzhak Oster, who was killed fighting in Lebanon, was buried at Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem. (Reuters: Ronen Zvulun)
Meanwhile, Iran's UN ambassador told an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council it had to launch a barrage of missiles at Israel on Tuesday to "restore balance" in the region.
In Gaza, Palestinian medical officials said Israeli ground and air operations killed at least 51 people, including women and children.
Israel has continued to strike what it says are militant targets across Gaza.
Israel also carried out an air strike on a residential building in the Mezzah suburb in the west of Syria's capital Damascus, killing three civilians and injuring three, Syrian state media reported on Wednesday.
Before the reported strike in Syria, IDF Chief of the General Staff Herzi Halevi reiterated that Israel would respond to Iran's missile attack on Tuesday.
"We will respond. We can locate important targets and we can hit them precisely and powerfully," he said.
"We have the capability to reach and strike every location in the Middle East and those of our enemies who have not yet understood this, will understand this soon."
Iran's UN ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani told an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Wednesday that its missile attack this week was "a necessary and proportionate response to Israel's continued terrorist aggressive acts over the past two months".
He says Iran has "consistently pursued peace and stability" and that Israel sees Iranian restraint "not as a gesture of goodwill but as a weakness to exploit".
He also accused the United States of complicity "in Israel's crimes" by helping to arm the nation after the October 7 terrorist attacks by Hamas in southern Israel.
Israel's UN ambassador Danny Danon said that the "the time for empty calls for de-escalation is over", telling the emergency meeting that "Iran's true face is one of terror, death and chaos".
He called Iran's missile barrage aimed at Israel on Tuesday "a cold-blooded attack against 10 million civilians" and "an unprecedented act of aggression".
Mr Danon stressed that Israel will not stop until all of the hostages taken by Hamas and other militants are back in Israel.
The escalation on multiple fronts has raised fears of a wider war in the region that could further draw in Iran — which backs Hezbollah and Hamas — as well as the United States, which has rushed military assets to the region in support of Israel.
US President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that America did not support striking Iran's nuclear sites following its aerial barrage aimed at Israel.
He also said that more sanctions would be imposed on Iran.
"Obviously, Iran is way off course," he said.
Mr Biden joined the G7 leaders in condemning Iran's attack and said the group agreed that Israel should respond "proportionally".
Meanwhile, Hamas's armed al-Qassam Brigades claimed responsibility for a shooting in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv that killed at least seven people, the group said in a statement on Wednesday.
The attack came shortly before Iran launched some 200 missiles at Israel.
Israel has continued to strike in several areas across southern Lebanon. (AP Photo: Baz Ratner)
Hezbollah militants fight Israeli troopsLebanese militant group Hezbollah said its fighters clashed with Israeli troops in two places inside Lebanon near the border.
The Israeli military said ground forces backed by air strikes had killed militants in "close-range engagements", without saying where.
Hezbollah claimed it had destroyed three Israeli tanks using guided rockets in the Lebanese border town of Maroun el-Ras.
The IDF also announced that a soldier — a 22-year-old captain in a commando brigade — was killed in combat in Lebanon, the first such death since the start of the latest operations.
Israeli media reported infantry and tank units operating in southern Lebanon after the military sent thousands of additional troops and artillery to the border.
Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut on Wednesday. (AP Photo: Hassan Ammar)
Hezbollah said its fighters wounded and killed a group of Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon after detonating an explosive device.
Israel's military later reported that seven other soldiers had been injured in the fighting in Lebanon in separate incidents, without providing details.
In the first confirmation of the incursion, the Lebanese army said Israeli forces had advanced some 400m across the border and withdrew "after a short period".
The Israeli military has warned people in around 50 villages and towns to evacuate north of the Awali River, some 60 kilometres from the border and much farther than the northern edge of a UN-declared zone intended to serve as a buffer between Israel and Hezbollah after their 2006 war.
Hundreds of thousands have already fled their homes as the conflict has intensified.
Israel has said it will continue to strike Hezbollah until it is safe for tens of thousands of its citizens displaced from homes near the Lebanon border to return.
Hezbollah has vowed to keep firing rockets into Israel until there is a ceasefire in Gaza with Hamas.
Israeli strikes have killed over 1,000 people in Lebanon over the past two weeks, nearly a quarter of them women and children, according to the country's Health Ministry.
Lebanon's caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, said a ceasefire was needed in Lebanon, saying about 1.2 million across Lebanon had been displaced by Israeli attacks.
"Stop fighting. We don't need more blood. We don't need more destruction," Mr Mikati said in a briefing organised by the American Task Force for Lebanon, a US-based lobby group.
"There is an immediate need for a ceasefire."
Palestinians describe massive raid in GazaThe Gaza Health Ministry said at least 51 people were killed and 82 wounded in the operation in Khan Younis that began early on Wednesday.
Records at the European Hospital showed seven women and 12 children, as young as 22 months old, were among those killed.
Another 23 people, including two children, were killed in separate strikes across Gaza, according to local hospitals.
Israel has returned to Khan Younis to fight throughout the nearly year-long war. (Reuters: Mohammed Salem/File Photo)
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment from AP news agency.
Residents said Israel had carried out heavy air strikes as its ground forces staged an incursion into three neighbourhoods in Khan Younis.
Mahmoud al-Razd, who had four relatives among those killed, described heavy destruction and said first responders had struggled to reach destroyed homes.
"The explosions and shelling were massive," he told The Associated Press.
"Many people are thought to be under the rubble, and no-one can retrieve them."
UN secretary-general banned from IsraelMeanwhile, Israel lashed out at the United Nations on Wednesday, declaring secretary-general António Guterres persona non grata, or banned from entering the country.
Foreign Minister Israel Katz accused him of failing to unequivocally condemn Tuesday night's Iranian missile attack.
Mr Guterres had released a brief statement after the barrage that read: "I condemn the broadening of the Middle East conflict, with escalation after escalation. This must stop. We absolutely need a ceasefire."
Speaking at the UN Security Council after Israel's decision to ban him, he said, "I again strongly condemn" Iran's aerial assault on Israel.
He also called for a ceasefire and for an end to the "sickening cycle of escalation" in the Middle East.
The spat deepens an already wide rift between Israel and the United Nations.
ABC/wires
