Israel reports 8 combat deaths as troops battle Hezbollah in Lebanon

BEIRUT, Lebanon

Israel pressed forward on two fronts Wednesday, pursuing a ground incursion into Lebanon against Hezbollah that left eight Israeli soldiers dead and conducting strikes in Gaza that killed dozens, including children. As Israel vowed to retaliate for Iran’s ballistic missile attack a day earlier, the region braced for further escalation.

Iran, which backs both Hezbollah and the Hamas militants who run the Gaza Strip, launched dozens of missiles into Israel on Tuesday night, another escalation in a tit-for-tat cycle that is pushing the Middle East closer to a regional war. Israel warned that the attack would have “repercussions.”

The Israeli military said seven soldiers were killed in two Hezbollah attacks in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, without elaborating. The deaths followed an earlier announcement of the first Israeli combat death in Lebanon since the start of the incursion — a 22-year-old captain in a commando brigade. Another seven troops were wounded.

Together, the deaths announced on the eve of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year, were some of the biggest casualties sustained by Israeli forces in months.

In Gaza, where the nearly yearlong war that triggered the widening conflict rages with no end in sight, Israeli ground and air operations in the territory’s second-largest city of Khan Younis killed at least 51 people, including women and children, Palestinian medical officials said.

And late Wednesday night, an Israeli airstrike hit an apartment building near the Lebanese capital’s city center, the second time Israel has struck central Beirut this week. At least six people were killed and seven wounded in the residential Bashoura district.

AP correspondent Charles de Ledesma reports on funerals for an Israeli commando and, in Sidon, victims of Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon.

Residents reported a sulfur-like smell following the attack, and Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency accused Israel of using internationally banned phosphorous bombs. Human rights groups have in the past accused Israel of using white phosphorus incendiary shells on towns and villages in conflict-hit southern Lebanon.

Multiple strikes were also reported in Beirut’s southern suburbs in areas issued evacuation warnings by the Israeli army. The area struck in central Beirut was not covered in those warnings.

The latest actions on multiple fronts have raised fears of a wider conflict that could draw in Iran as well as the United States, which has rushed military assets to the region in support of Israel.

Meanwhile, Syria’s state-run SANA news agency said an Israeli airstrike hit a residential building in Damascus on Wednesday evening, killing three people and wounding at least three others. An Associated Press journalist at the scene said the missile appeared to have targeted the bottom floor of a four-story apartment building.

There was no immediate comment from Israel, which frequently hits targets linked to Iran or allied groups in Syria, but rarely claims the strikes.