Lebanese armed group Hezbollah claimed to have foiled Thursday another Israeli attempt to advance at a border point in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah “repelled with artillery fire an attempt by enemy Israeli forces to advance at Fatima’s Gate,” it said, a day after eight Israeli soldiers were killed in south Lebanon fighting the Iran-backed group.
Israel confirmed late Wednesday the losses, which were the deadliest suffered by the Israeli military on the Lebanon front in the past year of border-area clashes.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a condolence video, said: “We are at the height of a difficult war against Iran’s Axis of Evil, which wants to destroy us.
“This will not happen because we will stand together and with God’s help, we will win together,” he said.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah said its fighters were engaging Israeli forces inside Lebanon on Wednesday, reporting ground clashes for the first time since Israeli forces pushed over the border.
The group added it destroyed three Israeli Merkava tanks with rockets near the border town of Maroun El Ras.
It also kept up its strikes on Israel, saying it had fired a barrage of rockets at the city of Tiberias in what it said was a response to the bombardment of Lebanese “towns, villages and civilians.”
On Thursday, Israel’s military said it killed 15 Hezbollah members in an airstrike in the Bint Jbeil municipality in south Lebanon, an area that had been heavily damaged during Israel’s last war there in 2006. Israel also told locals to evacuate another 25 villages in the south.
