Israel and Iran exchange threats, brief ground incursion in Lebanon

Israel and Iran have exchanged threats after a major Iranian attack on Israeli territory to avenge the deaths of the leaders of Hezbollah and Palestinian Hamas, with the Israeli army carrying out new strikes on Wednesday against the Lebanese pro-Iranian movement and a brief foray into the neighboring country, according to Beirut.

The Israeli army announced Wednesday that one of its soldiers had been killed in fighting in Lebanon, two days after the launch of a ground offensive in Lebanese territory against the armed Islamist movement Hezbollah.

“Captain Eitan Itzhak Oster, aged 22, fell in combat in Lebanon” on Wednesday, according to a military statement and the army website. This is the first loss announced by the Israeli army in Lebanon since the start of this offensive on Monday.

For its part, Hezbollah said on Wednesday that it was fighting Israeli forces who had “infiltrated” into southern Lebanon. The Iranian-backed movement at the same time announced that it had bombed several targets in northern Israel, whose air force carried out new raids on its stronghold in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Hezbollah announced Wednesday that it had activated a bomb targeting Israeli soldiers who were trying to infiltrate Lebanese territory near a border town in southern Lebanon.

“While an Israeli enemy force was trying to bypass the town of Yaroun,” Hezbollah fighters “took them by surprise by detonating a bomb,” says the pro-Iranian Lebanese group, specifying that “all members of the force were affected.”

The Lebanese army, for its part, announced that Israeli soldiers had carried out a brief incursion on Wednesday in two points in southern Lebanon.

“An Israeli enemy force has crossed the Blue Line [séparant les deux pays] over a distance of approximately 400 meters in Lebanese territory” in two sectors, “before withdrawing,” indicated the Lebanese army on its X account.

The army also announced on

“This is only the beginning of the confrontation […]”, the resistance in the south is at the highest level of preparation,” Hezbollah information bureau chief Mohammad Afif told reporters during a media tour of Beirut’s southern suburbs. .

“Iran has made a serious mistake […] and will pay the price,” warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after Iran launched around 180 missiles according to Israel, 200 according to Tehran.

Israel has declared UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “persona non grata”, criticizing him for failing to condemn the Iranian launches.

This second attack in almost six months is “complete”, Tehran said overnight, according to which “90% of the missiles” reached their target.

Iran’s chief of staff, General Mohammad Bagheri, warned that Iran would strike “with greater intensity”, targeting “all infrastructure” in the country in the event of Israeli retaliation.

For the first time, Iran used hypersonic missiles for this operation, called “Honest Promise 2”, according to Iranian media.

A large number were intercepted by the anti-missile system, said the Israeli army, which benefited from the support of American and British forces, according to the Pentagon and London.

The attack, which caused sirens to sound across the country, left two people lightly injured in Israel and killed a Palestinian in the occupied West Bank, according to emergency services and a Palestinian official.

“It was crazy” and “extremely scary, nothing that we could have predicted,” says Tel Aviv resident Ron Nori, who says he is, at 59, used to attacks.

Mossad targeted

The Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s ideological army, claimed to have “aimed at the heart” of Israel to avenge the deaths of the leaders of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, of Hamas Ismaïl Haniyeh and one of their commanders, killed with Hassan Nasrallah Friday in Lebanon.

According to the Iranian chief of staff, the missiles targeted “the three main military air bases” of the country, the Mossad, Israeli secret service, and two other air bases.

Iran exercised its “right to self-defense”, after two months of “restraint” to “give way to a ceasefire in Gaza”, wrote on X its head of diplomacy, Seyed Abbas Araghchi .

The pro-Hezbollah newspaper Al-Akhbar welcomed a “major setback” for Israel.

“This is not going to end well,” Mr. Netanyahu “has a long tradition of vigorous and rapid response” and “restraint is not his strong point,” political analyst Jordan Barkin commented for AFP.

In Tehran, Mansour Firouzabadi, a 45-year-old nurse, said he was “really worried” about an “extension of the war”, hoping “that the United States will stop supporting Israel and that Israel will not retaliate”.

“Alarming” spiral

On April 13, in response to a deadly strike attributed to Israel on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Iran carried out a first major attack on Israel, known as the “Honest Promise”, intercepted mainly by Israel with the help from allies, especially the United States.

“The United States fully, fully, fully supports Israel,” US President Joe Biden said on Tuesday, noting “ongoing” discussions with the Israeli ally on the response.

Iran has warned Washington against any intervention, Mr. Araghchi said.

The attack was widely condemned by the West, and sparked a wave of calls for restraint, particularly from Moscow which warned on Wednesday of an “alarming” spiral.

The UN Security Council is due to meet urgently on Wednesday, and Rome has called a G7 meeting, according to an Italian government source.

The escalation comes after nearly a year of war led by Israel against Hamas in Gaza, triggered by the Palestinian Islamist movement’s unprecedented attack on its territory on October 7, 2023, and cross-border firefights with Hezbollah , ally of Hamas.

On Friday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in a devastating Israeli raid on the southern suburbs of Beirut.

On July 31, Ismaïl Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas, was killed in an attack in Tehran, blamed on Israel by Iran and Hamas.

Before the missile salvos, an attack carried out Tuesday in Tel Aviv by Palestinians from the West Bank – one shot and the other injured, according to the police – led to the death of seven civilians, including a Greek, according to Athens.

The Israeli embassy in Stockholm was targeted by gunfire on Tuesday evening, and two “explosions” occurred near that of Copenhagen, according to the Swedish and Danish police.

Strikes in Lebanon and Gaza

According to the Lebanese National News Agency (ANI), Israeli aircraft carried out a new strike in the morning on the southern suburbs of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold, after a night of violent raids which left masses of smoking rubble in the sector.

The Israeli army, which announced that it had struck Hezbollah “targets” in the area after calls to evacuate, then urged the “immediate” evacuation of new localities in southern Lebanon.

A source from the Lebanese security services confirmed the night’s strikes on Beirut, with AFP journalists reporting around twenty explosions.

The latest assessment of Israeli strikes by the Lebanese Ministry of Health lists 55 dead and 56 injured in 24 hours.

According to the disaster management unit, 1,873 people have been killed in Lebanon over the past year.

According to an Israeli official, the ground incursion consists of “localized raids of a very limited scale”, intended, after more than a week of airstrikes targeting Hezbollah, to “remove threats” from northern Israel .

On Wednesday, the Israeli army also announced that it had attacked two schools in the north of the Gaza Strip and a third in the center, used according to it by Hamas as command centers.

At least 51 people have been killed in the last 24 hours, the Hamas government’s Health Ministry announced on Wednesday, bringing the human toll to 41,689 in the devastated Palestinian territory since the start of the war in Gaza.