Hezbollah claims it repelled Israeli force infiltrating Lebanese border town

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Hezbollah fighters have been involved in “heavy clashes” with Israeli forces after they crossed the border and entered two villages, the militant group reported, as their conflict with Israel gradually escalates into street fighting.
The Iran-backed fighters engaged “an Israeli enemy infantry force that attempted to infiltrate the village of Odaisseh,” Hezbollah stated, noting that they clashed with the Israeli troops. The group also reported launching rockets and artillery at Israeli forces at three separate locations along the border. This marked Hezbollah’s first confirmation that Israeli forces had crossed into Lebanon.
The group reported later that it was engaged in heavy clashes with Israeli forces in the border village of Maroun Al Ras, and had inflicted “several casualties”. The Israeli army hasn’t announced any losses yet.
The Israeli invasion of Lebanon further expands the campaign against the Iran-backed Hezbollah group after the killing of its leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday. His death followed a series of walkie-talkie and pager explosions hitting thousands of Hezbollah members.
Hezbollah, which suffered heavy losses in the spate of attacks, began low-intensity strikes on Israeli troops a day after its Palestinian ally Hamas carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, which led to Israel’s devastating assault on Gaza. But the conflict recently turned into a full-scale war, with Israel saying that its goal is to secure the return of tens of thousands of residents to the north.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, Israel ordered people in more than 25 villages to leave their homes. The Israeli army’s Arabic spokesman Avichay Adraee told people to go north of the Awali river, not far from the city of Sidon. He said anyone who moved south risked putting themselves in danger.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army announced it was striking Hezbollah targets in Beirut overnight into Wednesday, and, in a separate statement, claimed that over the past few days its fighter jets “conducted a series of targeted strikes in the area of Beirut against a number of weapons production facilities and additional terrorist infrastructure sites in the area”.
On Tuesday, Israel said its troops had begun “targeted ground raids” in southern Lebanon. The UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon stressed that the Israeli offensive did not constitute a “ground incursion” and Hezbollah denied that any troops had crossed the border.
Israel has struck Beirut’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, repeatedly since last week, saying it is targeting sites belonging to the group, including the strike that killed its chief Hassan Nasrallah.
The Israeli military ordered residents in southern Beirut to leave their homes before a probable strike on claimed Hezbollah targets.
“You are located near dangerous Hezbollah facilities, which the [Israeli military] will act against with force in the near future,” military spokesman Lt Col Avichay Adraee said on X, mentioning the area of Haret Hreik in south Beirut.
Israeli strikes against Hezbollah targets in several regions of Lebanon killed 55 people and wounded 156 on Tuesday, the Lebanese Health Ministry said. Lebanon’s disaster management agency had said earlier that 1,873 people had been killed and 9,134 wounded as a result of Israeli attacks in the country since October 8 last year.
Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said there could be as many as one million people displaced from their homes in the country, with authorities registering almost 240,000 crossings into Syria since September 23.