Jerusalem — Israel suffered one of the deadliest days of its ground offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon on Wednesday when six of its soldiers were killed in combat near the border.
The soldiers “fell during combat in southern Lebanon,” the army said in a statement. Their deaths brought to 47 the number of Israeli troops who have been killed in combat with Hezbollah since September 30, when Israel sent ground forces into Lebanon.
The army’s announcement came after Israel Katz, Israel’s new defense minister, said there would be no easing up in the war against Hezbollah.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on X shared an image of the “Golani” Brigade symbol, the unit the soldiers who were killed belonged to, a green olive tree against a yellow background, with a broken heart emoji.
Since September 23, Israel has stepped up its bombing campaign in Lebanon, mainly targeting Hezbollah strongholds in south Beirut and in the east and south of the country. On September 30, it sent in ground troops.
The offensive came after nearly a year of cross-border exchanges of fire, launched by Hezbollah in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas following its October 7, 2023, attack on Israel that triggered the Gaza war.
Strike at Aramoun
Earlier on Wednesday, an Israeli strike hit Aramoun, a densely packed area south of Beirut that is outside Hezbollah’s traditional strongholds. The health ministry said the strike killed six people.
Lebanese state media on the same day reported a third wave of Israeli raids on Hezbollah’s south Beirut bastion in 24 hours.
The Israeli army, meanwhile, said it had intercepted some of the “five projectiles” that had crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory.
Katz told senior military commanders on his first visit to the border region since his appointment last week that Israel would “make no cease-fires, we will not take our foot off the pedal, and we will not allow any arrangement that does not include the achievement of our war objectives.”
Katz added: “We will continue to strike Hezbollah everywhere.”
Israel’s objectives include disarming Hezbollah and pushing the militants beyond the Litani River, which flows across southern Lebanon.
After Katz’s address, another airstrike hit a Beirut suburb Wednesday evening after a warning by Israel’s military for residents to evacuate.
Hezbollah said on Wednesday it had fired ballistic missiles at the Israeli army’s headquarters in the commercial hub of Tel Aviv, which also houses the defense ministry.
Contacted by AFP, the Israeli army spokesperson’s unit said it would “not to react to Hezbollah’s allegations.”
Lebanese authorities say more than 3,360 people have been killed since October 8, 2023, when Hezbollah and Israel began engaging in cross-border clashes.
Rocket fire from Lebanon on Tuesday killed two residents of the northern Israeli city of Nahariya. The deaths brought to 45 the number of civilians killed in northern Israel as a result of rocket fire from Lebanon.
Israeli hostage
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group, an ally of Hamas, released a video earlier on Wednesday of an Israeli hostage held in Gaza, identifying himself as Sasha Trupanov.
Trupanov’s mother, Lena, in a statement published by the Hostage and Missing Families Forum campaign group, urged the hostages’ immediate release.
When Hamas militants staged their October 7, 2023, attack, they killed about 1,200 people and about 250 hostages into the Gaza Strip. Of those, about 100 remain held hostage, while about a third of them are confirmed dead. Their bodies remain in Gaza.
In the more than 13 months of war, Israel’s offensive has killed nearly 44,000 people, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Wednesday. The health ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says more than half of those killed were women and children.
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