Fear of wider war mounts | India calls for restraint by all sides

Israel on Wednesday said eight of its soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon as troops battle Hezbollah militants on the ground after the start of an Israeli incursion into that country.

The region braced for further escalation as Israel vowed to retaliate for Iran’s missile attack a day earlier. Addressing the nation, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu paid tribute to the slain soldiers and said, “We are in the middle of a tough war against Iran’s axis of evil, which seeks to destroy us… but this will not happen. Together we will defeat the enemy.”

The soldiers were killed in two separate events, military officials said. In Gaza, where the yearlong war that triggered the widening conflict rages on with no end in sight, Israeli ground and air operations in a hard-hit city killed at least 51 persons, including women and children, Palestinian medical officials said.

Israel has continued to strike what it says are militant targets across Gaza a year after Hamas’ October 7 attack ignited the war. The escalation on multiple fronts has raised fears of a wider war in West Asia that could further draw in Iran — which backs Hezbollah and Hamas — as well as the US, which has rushed military assets to the region in support of Israel.

Hezbollah, widely seen as the most powerful armed group in the region, said its fighters clashed with Israeli troops in two places inside Lebanon near the border. The Israeli military said ground forces backed by airstrikes had killed militants in “close-range engagements” without saying where. The military also announced that a soldier — a 22-year-old captain in a commando brigade — was killed in combat in Lebanon, the first such death since the start of the latest operations. Israeli media reported infantry and tank units operating in southern Lebanon after the military sent thousands of additional troops and artillery to the border.

Hezbollah said its fighters wounded and killed a group of Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon after detonating an explosive device. The Lebanese army said Israeli forces had advanced some 400 m across the border and withdrew “after a short period,” its first confirmation of the incursion.

The Israeli military has warned people in around 50 villages and towns to evacuate north of the Awali river, some 60 km from the border and much farther than the northern edge of a UN-declared zone intended to serve as a buffer between Israel and Hezbollah after their 2006 war. Hundreds of thousands have already fled their homes as the conflict has intensified.

Israel has said it would continue to strike Hezbollah until it was safe for tens of thousands of its citizens displaced from homes near the Lebanon border to return. Hezbollah has vowed to keep firing rockets into Israel until there is a cease-fire in Gaza with Hamas. Israeli strikes have killed over 1,000 people in Lebanon over the past two weeks, nearly a quarter of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry.

Meanwhile, amid growing tensions in West Asia, India on Wednesday called for restraint by all sides and said the conflict must not take a wider regional dimension. “We are deeply concerned at the escalation of the security situation in West Asia and reiterate our call for restraint by all concerned and protection of civilians,” the MEA said.