JERUSALEM/BEIRUT: The Zionist entity said on Wednesday eight of its soldiers were killed in combat in south Lebanon as its forces thrust into its northern neighbor in a campaign against Hezbollah. The losses were the deadliest suffered by the Zionist military on the Lebanon front in the past year of border-area clashes between the Zionist entity and its Iranian-backed Lebanese foe.

Hezbollah said its fighters were engaging Zionist forces inside Lebanon on Wednesday, reporting ground clashes for the first time since Zionist forces pushed over the border. Hezbollah said it had destroyed three Zionist Merkava tanks with rockets near the border town of Maroun El Ras. The Zionist military said regular infantry and armored units were joining its ground operations in Lebanon, a day after Iran fired 200 missiles into the Zionist entity, a barrage which raised concerns that the oil-producing Middle East could be caught up in a wider conflict.

Zionist military strikes across the Gaza Strip killed at least 65 Palestinians overnight, including in a school sheltering displaced families, medics said, as Zionist tanks advanced in areas of Khan Younis in the south of the enclave. Zionist tanks carried out a raid on several areas in eastern and central Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, before partially

retreating, leaving at least 40 people killed and dozens wounded, according to the official Voice of Palestine radio and Hamas media.

In Gaza City, at least 22 Palestinians were killed, the medics said. One Zionist strike on a school sheltering displaced families in Gaza City killed 17 people, while another hit the Al-Amal Orphan Society, which also houses displaced persons, killing at least five others, the medics said. Later on Wednesday, a Zionist strike on Nuseirat Girls’ School sheltering Palestinian displaced families in Nuseirat in central Gaza killed three people and wounded 15, medics said.

Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, locked in nearly a year of war with the Zionist entity, celebrated as they watched dozens of Iranian rockets en route to the Zionist entity. Some of those rockets fell in the Palestinian enclave after being intercepted by the Zionist Iron Dome missile defenses, but caused no human losses, witnesses said.

Iran said on Wednesday its missile volley – its biggest ever assault on the Zionist entity – was over barring further provocation, but the Zionist entity and the United States promised to hit back hard. US President Joe Biden said Wednesday he would not support a strike by the Zionist entity aimed at wiping out Iran’s nuclear facilities in retaliation. “The answer is no,” Biden told reporters, when asked whether he would back strikes against Iranian nuclear sites.

A 38-year-old Palestinian from Gaza, the only known fatality in Iran’s attack on the Zionist entity, was buried on Wednesday. Sameh Khadr Hassan Al-Asali had been staying in a Palestinian security forces compound in the West Bank when he was killed by falling missile debris during Tuesday’s attack. Two people were wounded by shrapnel and a school building was damaged. The Zionist military said several Iranian missiles struck inside air force bases without causing any casualties or damage.

Hezbollah said it had repelled Zionist forces near several border towns and also fired rockets at military posts inside the Zionist entity. The paramilitary group’s media chief Mohammad Afif said those battles were only “the first round” and that Hezbollah had enough fighters, weapons and ammunition to push back the Zionist entity. The Zionist military issued new evacuation orders for around two dozen towns along the southern border, instructing inhabitants to head north of the Awali River, which flows east to west some 60 km north of the Zionist frontier.

The Zionist entity renewed its bombardment early on Wednesday of Beirut’s southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has its headquarters, with more than a dozen airstrikes against what it said were targets belonging to Hezbollah. The Zionist entity also carried out an airstrike on a residential building in the Mezzah suburb in the west of Syria’s capital Damascus, killing three civilians and injuring three, Syrian state media reported on Wednesday.

More than 1,900 people have been killed and over 9,000 wounded in Lebanon in almost a year of cross-border fighting, with most of the deaths occurring in the past two weeks, according to Lebanese government statistics. Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said that about 1.2 million Lebanese had been displaced by Zionist attacks.

Malika Joumaa, from Sudan, was forced to take shelter in Saint Joseph’s church in Beirut after being forced from her house near Sidon in coastal south Lebanon with her husband and two children. “It’s good that the church offered its help. We were going to stay in the streets; where would we have gone? We were (sheltering) under the bridge, it is not safe. If we go back home, it is not safe, they are striking everywhere.”

Iran described Tuesday’s missile assault as a response to Zionist killings of militant leaders, including Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, attacks in Lebanon against the group and the Zionist entity’s war against Palestinian Hamas fighters in Gaza. The general staff of Iran’s armed forces said any Zionist response would be met with “vast destruction”. US news website Axios on Wednesday cited Zionist officials as saying the Zionist entity will launch a “significant retaliation” for Iran’s attack within days that could strike oil production facilities inside Iran and other strategic sites. – Agencies