Hezbollah says its fighters have battled Israeli forces who crossed the border into southern Lebanon as the Israeli military said at least eight soldiers have been killed in the fighting in Lebanon.
“The [Israeli army] announced that seven more soldiers have fallen,” it said in a statement on Wednesday, after announcing the death of a first soldier in Lebanon earlier in the day.
The soldiers were killed in two separate events, military officials said.
The statement came as Hezbollah said its fighters were engaging Israeli forces inside Lebanon on Wednesday, reporting ground clashes for the first time since Israel began its ground advance earlier this week.
The Lebanese armed group said that after surveilling Israeli soldiers sheltering in a house outside the Lebanese village of Kfar Kila, its fighters detonated an explosive device in the building and then targeted it with bullets and rocket-propelled grenades.
Hezbollah said all members of the unit were either killed or injured, without specifying the number of casualties. There was no immediate statement from Israel.
In a statement earlier on Wednesday, it said its fighters detonated an explosive device that killed and wounded members of the Israeli army trying to circumvent the village of Yaroun in southern Lebanon.
The Iran-aligned group also said it “destroyed three Merkava tanks with rockets as they advanced towards the village of Maroun al-Ras,” referring to an area where they reported clashes with Israeli troops earlier in the day.
Al Jazeera was not able to independently confirm the claims by Hezbollah or the Israeli military.
‘Strategic victory’?
“Those are two very serious incidents and Hezbollah are now very confident because they have managed to push the Israelis back,” said Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan, reporting from Hasbaiyya in southeastern Lebanon.
“They are seeing this as a strategic victory.”
The Israeli military also said ground forces backed by air strikes had killed Hezbollah fighters in “close-range engagements” without saying where. There was no immediate comment from Hezbollah.
It also said regular infantry and armoured units were joining its ground operations in Lebanon.
The Lebanese army said Israeli forces had advanced some 400 metres (yards) across the border and withdrew “after a short period,” its first confirmation of the incursion.
The Israeli military has warned people in approximately 50 villages and towns to evacuate north of the Awali River, some 60 kilometres (37 miles) 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.
Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said the number of people displaced by Israeli attacks in Lebanon, which escalated dramatically last week, has risen to 1.2 million. More than 1,000 people have been killed, nearly a quarter of them women and children, according to the Ministry of Public Health.
Al Jazeera’s Khan said one of the main roads in southern Lebanon that is being used by fleeing residents was bombed again today.
“A lot of people have fled those areas and they are doing so in fear and in panic,” said Khan, who noted the road has repeatedly come under attack in recent days.
“That’s one of the only ways out of southern Lebanon under those evacuation orders and Israel has bombed it not just once, not just twice, but three times in 48 hours,” he said.
Israel has said it will continue to strike Hezbollah until it is safe for tens of thousands of people to return to their homes in towns and villages near the Lebanon border. Hezbollah has pledged to keep firing rockets into Israel until there is a ceasefire in the besieged and bombarded Gaza Strip.
US calls for Iran sanctions
The intensified fighting in Lebanon came as Israel promised to respond after Iran fired a barrage of ballistic missiles at key military and security targets in Israel. Iran says the strikes were in response to attacks on Gaza and Lebanon and the killing of key officials in Hezbollah and the Palestinian group Hamas.
“We will respond. We can locate important targets and we can hit them precisely and powerfully,” said Chief of the General Staff Herzi Halevi in a video statement.
“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.”
Meanwhile, at an emergency session at the United Nations Security Council, the US also warned Iran against targeting it or Israel amid rising fears of a wider war in the region.
“Our actions have been defensive in nature,” US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the council.
“Let me be clear: The Iranian regime will be held responsible for its actions. And we strongly warn against Iran – or its proxies – taking actions against the United States, or further actions against Israel,” she said.
French UN Ambassador Nicolas de Riviere said France wants the Security Council to “show unity and to speak with one voice” to de-escalate the situation. Thomas-Greenfield said the council should condemn Iran’s attack and impose “serious consequences” on Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) for its actions.
“We have a collective responsibility, as members of the Security Council, to impose additional sanctions on the IRGC for supporting terrorism, and for flouting so many of this Council’s resolutions,” the US ambassador said.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the council he strongly condemned Iran’s attack on Israel. Guterres said the “deadly cycle of tit-for-tat violence must stop” in the Middle East. “Time is running out,” he told the 15-member council.
Earlier Wednesday, Israel had declared Guterres “persona non grata” for failing to specifically condemn Iran’s missile attack when he condemned on Tuesday the “broadening conflict in the Middle East.”
“Anyone who cannot unequivocally condemn Iran’s heinous attack on Israel does not deserve to step foot on Israeli soil,” said Foreign Minister Israel Katz in a statement.
In a letter to the Security Council on Tuesday, Iran justified its attack on Israel as self-defence under Article 51 of the founding UN Charter, citing “aggressive actions” by Israel including violations of Iran’s sovereignty.
“Iran … in full compliance with the principle of distinction under international humanitarian law, has only targeted the regime’s military and security installations with its defensive missile strikes,” Iran wrote to the council.
Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon on Wednesday rejected Iran’s claim of self-defence.
“It was a calculated attack on a civilian population,” he told reporters before the council meeting. “Israel will not stand by in the face of such aggression. Israel will respond. Our response will be decisive, and yes, it will be painful, but unlike Iran, we will act in full accordance with international law.”