Israel’s military says eight of its soldiers have been killed in combat in southern Lebanon, its first losses since the start of the ground invasion against the armed group Hezbollah.

Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, said it had destroyed Israeli tanks during the fighting and insisted it had enough men and ammunition to push back the forces.

Earlier, the Israeli military announced that more infantry and armoured troops had joined the operation seeking to dismantle what it called “terrorist infrastructure” in Lebanese border villages.

Meanwhile, there have been more Israeli air strikes in Beirut’s densely populated southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has its most important base.

Hezbollah has been weakened after two weeks of Israeli strikes and other attacks that have killed more than 1,200 people across Lebanon and displaced around 1.2 million, according to Lebanese authorities.

  • @HappycamperNZ
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    142 months ago

    Its it actually a war yet or we still pretending it’s not?

      • @Keeponstalin
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        21 month ago

        As was the bombing of hundreds of civilians in the Capital. Simply a military operation, totally not war

      • @HappycamperNZ
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        -11 month ago

        Its terrorism when its a non state actor using violence to achieve political objectives. Its war when its state v state.

        • @[email protected]
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          21 month ago

          So when Isreal strikes Gaza its somehow state vs state even though Gaza isn’t it’s own country? But when Gaza strikes back they’re no longer considered a state and it’s terrorism again?

          • @HappycamperNZ
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            01 month ago

            I didn’t mention Gaza, why is that your point?

  • @small44
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    92 months ago

    I wonder what’s the real numbers are

    • @saltesc
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      102 months ago

      I’d say just eight. And they’ll use it to “retaliate” with bigger boom-boom.

    • NoneOfUrBusiness
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      52 months ago

      I don’t think they hide their casualties. Can’t really hide that stuff when all the information becomes publicly available anyway.

        • NoneOfUrBusiness
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          42 months ago

          In a full-scale war I get you, but in Israel’s case the casualties are usually not enough for that kind of foul play. The number can also be confirmed via publicly available routes, which is why people could tell that October 7th killed 1000 and change instead of the initial 1200 estimate, and that 66% of those were military or security targets. Israel didn’t release that information themselves.

          • @[email protected]
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            41 month ago

            I took like two or three months until they revised down the numbers. So it is possible to have uncertain numbers floating around for a while, either over- or under-reporting depending on the current tactical goal.

            • NoneOfUrBusiness
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              11 month ago

              I mean fair enough but the reported number is 8. If they underreport what will they say? 10? 11? It’s very rare for Arab militias to score casualties in the double digits against the Israeli military (October 7th was a massive outlier), so I’d be inclined to take the number at face value or expect it to go up by one or two due to fatal injuries.