Eight Israeli soldiers were killed in Lebanon on Wednesday, the first casualties in Israel's ground campaign against Hezbollah, signaling the potentially bloody toll such an offensive could take as the military expands its battle against the militant group, The Washington Post reported, UNN reported.
Details
The Israeli Defense Forces said that soldiers were killed in three separate incidents and seven others were seriously wounded, but did not provide further details. The statement came just hours after the military said it was engaged in "close combat" firefights on Lebanese territory.
On Wednesday, Hezbollah said for the first time that it was fighting Israeli troops in Lebanon, The Wall Street Journal reports.
If the pace of Israeli casualties in Lebanon continues, experts say, it could affect the depth and scope of the offensive that the Israeli Defense Forces announced Tuesday morning, saying the goal is to destroy Hezbollah infrastructure near the border. For Israel, the deaths will revive painful memories of the 2006 invasion of Lebanon, when the first tank to cross the border hit a roadside bomb, killing four soldiers, WP notes.
According to Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, the Israeli military has already carried out more than 3,600 air strikes, and about 1 million people have been forced to flee.
Israeli military officials have said that their main goal is to prevent Hezbollah from carrying out an attack similar to the one on October 7 in northern Israel, which the group has openly threatened for ten years, the newspaper writes.
The IDF estimated that Hezbollah had between 2,000 and 3,000 elite fighters, known as the Radwan Force, operating about 3 km from the border. According to an Israeli military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, according to IDF protocol, an additional 6,000 to 8,000 fighters were deployed about 6.5 km from the border.
According to the official, it will take "several weeks" for Israeli forces to destroy the infrastructure in the area.
According to the military, some of Hezbollah's attack tunnels and material assets have already been destroyed.
But the ground forces that are now coming in are part of a "different phase" and could do more "damage" to the group, the official said.