Eight IDF soldiers killed fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon as Israel strikes Beirut

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged victory in the country’s conflict with Hezbollah, following the deaths of eight soldiers in Lebanon.

“I would like to send my heartfelt condolences to the families of our heroes who fell today in Lebanon, may God avenge them, and may their memories be a blessing,” Mr Netanyahu said, paying tribute to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers.

Mr Netanyahu emphasised that Israel is engaged in a “tough war against Iran’s axis of evil.” He reassured the nation, saying, “this will not happen. Because we will stand together, and with God’s help, we will win together.”

His remarks come as tensions between Israel and Hezbollah continue to escalate, with the Lebanese-based militant group posing a significant challenge to regional stability.

China called on the United Nations Security Council to take “urgent actions” to de-escalate the situation in the Middle East as Israel launched fresh air strikes in Lebanon.

China’s permanent representative to the UN, Fu Cong, said during a Security Council briefing on Wednesday, that it needed to make clear and unequivocal demands to stop the cycle of violence over the Israeli-Lebanon conflict.

“The Security Council bears the primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security,” the official Xinhua news agency reported Mr Fu as saying, noting that all parties concerned “must return to the track of political and diplomatic solutions”.

Israel’s latest missile strikes in central Beirut come after Iran fired more than 180 missiles into Israel on Tuesday. Israel has also sent infantry and armoured units into Lebanon with reports of fighting with the Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah.

Iran said on Wednesday its missile volley – its biggest ever assault on Israel – was over barring further provocation, but Israel and the United States promised to hit back hard.

Iran’s missile attack and Israel’s pledge of retaliation have raised concerns that the oil-producing Middle East could be caught up in a wider conflict.

Warning that the current situation is “hanging by a thread,” Xinhua cited Mr Fu as saying that any “passive procrastination would be irresponsible, and any rhetoric of condoning further military adventurism would send a wrong message”.

Mr Fu said the spreading Middle East conflict had already caused an unprecedented humanitarian disaster, with Gaza having become a “hell on earth,” and over 1.2 million people displaced in Lebanon.

Hezbollah says it fired surface-to-air missiles at an Israeli military helicopter flying over Beit Hillel in northern Israel, forcing it to retreat.

The Lebanese militant group didn’t say if the helicopter was hit in the attack Wednesday, and there was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. It is the first time the group has said it fired a missile at a helicopter since hostilities between the two sides escalated two weeks ago.

Hezbollah and the Israeli military have clashed in southern Lebanese border towns since Israel launched its ground operation against Hezbollah.

Hezbollah earlier said it destroyed three Israeli Merkava tanks heading towards Maroun al-Ras, and detonated an explosive device hidden in an abandoned building on the outskirts of Kfar Kila after Israeli soldiers entered.

An Israeli airstrike hit a residential building in the Mezzeh area of Damascus Wednesday evening, killing three people and wounding at least three more, Syria’s state-run SANA news agency reported.

An Associated Press journalist at the scene says the missile appeared to have targeted the bottom floor of a four-story apartment building.

There has been no comment from Israel, which frequently strikes targets linked to Iran or allied groups in Syria but rarely claims responsibility.

The strike comes amid a multi-front escalation in the ongoing war in the Middle East. Israel has launched a heavy aerial bombardment and what it describes as a limited ground incursion in Lebanon. It says that incursion aims to push the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah back from the border after nearly a year of low-level clashes.

On Tuesday, Iran fired a barrage of ballistic missiles into Israel, which it said was in retaliation for attacks that killed the leaders of Hezbollah and Hamas — both backed by Iran — in Beirut and Tehran.

Hamas’ military wing has claimed responsibility for a mass shooting in Tel Aviv that left seven people dead and wounded 16 more.

It said the two attackers, Mohammed Mesek and Ahmed Himouni, were its militants who hailed from the southern West Bank city of Hebron.

Israeli police said the two opened fire Tuesday evening in the Jaffa neighborhood of Tel Aviv, including shooting directly into a light rail carriage crowded with passengers that was stopped at a station. Police said the pair were shot and killed by security guards and armed pedestrians.

The attack came moments before Iran launched a massive barrage of rockets towards Israel, sending people into bomb shelters across the country.

It remains unclear how the two men entered Israel from the West Bank. Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, is active in various cities and refugee camps in the West Bank.

On Wednesday, locals left flowers and candles at the train stop, where bullet holes peppered the signs and benches.

Maya Brandwine said she was at a coffee shop on the street when the shooting broke out. During the subsequent Iranian missile attack, she took cover in a bomb shelter as police swept for suspects.

“It’s a nightmare, and we’re starting to get used to it,” she said, blaming the policies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir for the violence.

Thousands of Syrians and Lebanese continue to pour into Syria to escape Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon.

On Wednesday, an Associated Press team saw hundreds crowding the Jousieh border crossing, one of several points of entry into Syria. The crossing is around 30 kilometers (18 miles) from Syria’s central city of Homs, where many said they were headed.

Most of those waiting to enter Syria were from eastern Lebanon’s city of Baalbek and surrounding areas, which have been hard hit by Israeli airstrikes in recent days. The militant group Hezbollah has a strong presence in that region, but many of those killed and wounded have been civilians.

Some came from as far as the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Ola Hallaq, her husband and two kids were among those waiting to be processed. Originally from Homs, she fled Syria at the start of the civil war in 2011 and settled in Baalbek. Now, as Israel pounds eastern Lebanon, the family is returning home despite the uncertainty and lack of income.

“I’m returning to my country because of the war — there was so much destruction all around,” she said.

Dabbah Mashaal, an official at the crossing, said 10,000 displaced Syrians and 7,700 Lebanese have crossed the border in recent days.

An Israeli strike in central Beirut killed six people early on Thursday, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.

The agency said that an additional seven people were injured and are being treated in local hospitals.

The recent strikes on Beirut are the first time Israel has targeted the center of Lebanon’s capital since the nations went to war in 2006.

The State Department says about 100 American citizens and family members have left Lebanon on a flight contracted with a commercial airline.

Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Wednesday that the flight to Istanbul was not a charter flight but also was not on the Lebanese national carrier Middle East Airlines, which is the only commercial airline flying scheduled flights in and out of Beirut.

Since 28 September, MEA has made about 800 seats on its flights out of Beirut available for American citizens, but Miller could not say how many had taken those MEA flights.

He said some 6,000 American citizens have now asked for information from the US Embassy in Beirut on how they might be able to leave the country, although only a small fraction of those have asked for actual assistance.

The United Nations Security Council held an emergency meeting Wednesday to address the spiralling conflict in the Middle East.

Iran’s ambassador to the UN said his country launched nearly 200 missiles at Israel on Tuesday as a deterrent to further Israeli violence, while his Israeli counterpart called the barrage an “unprecedented act of aggression.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed late Tuesday to retaliate, and an Iranian commander threatened wider strikes on infrastructure if Israel did so. US President Biden said on Wednesday that he would not support an Israeli attack targeting Iran’s nuclear program.

Israel further ruffled feathers Wednesday when its foreign minister declared the UN secretary-general “persona non-grata” in the country, doubling down on decades of accusations of antisemitism against the organization.

Israel was meanwhile battling militants on two fronts, pursuing a ground incursion into Lebanon against Hezbollah and conducting strikes in Gaza that killed dozens, including children. The Israeli military said eight soldiers have died in the conflict in southern Lebanon.

Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire across the Lebanon border almost daily since the day after Hamas’ cross-border attack on 7 October, 2023, which killed 1,200 Israelis and took 250 others hostage. Israel declared war on the militant group in the Gaza Strip in response. More than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory, and just over half the dead have been women and children, according to local health officials.