On Wednesday, eight Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers were killed in a series of clashes. hezbollah According to the Israeli military, the incident occurred in southern Lebanon.
Five special forces members were killed and five others seriously injured in a gunfight with Hezbollah operatives in a village in southern Lebanon, The Times reported.IsraelReported.
Two members of the reconnaissance unit and one member of the engineering unit were also killed on Wednesday.
Hezbollah claimed early Wednesday that it had killed “a large number” of Israeli soldiers in three different villages in southern Lebanon.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was immediately released.video messageHe expressed his condolences to the families of the victims and vowed to win the conflict.
“We are in the middle of a bitter war with the Iranian axis of evil who wants to destroy us. That will not happen, because we are united and with God's help, together we will “Because we can win,” he said.
inanother statementIsraeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said: “A great bloody price will have to be paid to ensure the continuation of life in our country.”
“It is our deep commitment to continue doing everything necessary to defend our homeland and achieve our goals,” Gallant said.
The deaths were the first major casualties for the IDF since Israel began its ground invasion. Lebanon Late Monday night, the conflict between the two countries became the largest of its kind since the 34-day war with Hezbollah in 2006. The war ended with heavy casualties for the Israeli army, with a total of 121 soldiers killed.
The ground invasion follows heavy Israeli airstrikes across Lebanon in the past few weeks, killing more than 1,000 people, including Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and several other government officials. . Previously, Lebanese militias had been supporting Hamas, another Iranian proxy group, in clashes with Israel on the southern border.
Israel says the main objective of the fighting is to push back Hezbollah and clear the way for displaced people to return to border areas.
In response to the Israeli invasion, Iran, which backs Hezbollah, fired nearly 200 missiles at Israel on Tuesday. Israel and its biggest ally, the United States, have vowed that this action will have serious consequences.
“We will respond. We are able to locate important targets and attack them with precision and force,” Israel's top military chief of staff, Helj Halevi, said in a video message on Wednesday. “We have the ability to reach and strike anywhere in the Middle East, and any adversary who doesn't yet understand this will soon understand.”
