By Chibuzo Ihegboro
Israeli soldiers were targeted by Hezbollah militants near the Lebanese border village of Labbouneh with artillery shells and rockets on Wednesday, the group said, a day after Israel said it had killed two successors to its slain leader.
The Iran-backed movement, which has been launching rockets against Israel for a year in parallel with the Gaza war and is now fighting it in ground clashes, said it had pushed the troops back.
The escalation in Lebanon, after a year of war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, has raised fears of a wider Middle East conflict that could suck in Iran and Israel’s superpower ally the United States.
The Israeli military said three of its soldiers were severely injured on Tuesday and Wednesday during combat in southern Lebanon. Sirens sounded in northern Israel on Wednesday morning after Israel renewed bombing of Beirut’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, overnight.
The conflict in Lebanon has escalated dramatically in recent weeks as Israel has carried out a string of assassinations of top Hezbollah leaders and launched ground operations into southern Lebanon that expanded further this week.
Hezbollah is the most formidably armed of Iran’s proxy forces across the Middle East and has been acting in support of Palestinian militants fighting Israel in Gaza.
Israel has said that troops from as many as four divisions have operated inside Lebanon since the first announcement of the ground operation on Oct. 1, but it has not confirmed that they have established a permanent presence there.
Hezbollah says it has clashed with Israeli troops on Lebanese soil, including with artillery fire and rockets, but that it has managed to push the troops back and prevent them from holding territory in Lebanon.
Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon has killed more than 2,100 people, most of them in the last two weeks, and forced 1.2 million people from their homes.
Israel says it has no choice but to strike Hezbollah so that tens of thousands of Israelis can return to homes they fled under Hezbollah rocket fire.