Israeli Soldiers Killed in Lebanon as Threat of Wider War Grows

Israel said eight of its soldiers were killed in clashes with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, the first casualties it’s suffered in an expanding ground incursion, amid fears of a spiraling conflict with Iran.

(Bloomberg) — Israel said eight of its soldiers were killed in clashes with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, the first casualties it’s suffered in an expanding ground incursion, amid fears of a spiraling conflict with Iran. 

Israel said it was sending reinforcements into southern Lebanon and Israeli jets launched fresh air strikes on the Iran-backed group. Hezbollah fired repeated rocket salvos on Israeli towns and said it had destroyed three tanks while advancing on the town of Maroun Al Ras.

The Israeli offensive in Lebanon and Iran’s missile barrage against Israel have heightened fears of a wider Middle East war, rocked energy markets and spurred Israel’s developed-world allies — and other major powers — to seek de-escalation. Group of Seven leaders, after a phone call Wednesday, said a regional conflict is in no one’s interest and a diplomatic solution is still possible. President Joe Biden said further US sanctions will be imposed on Iran.

Netanyahu’s government — along with other Israeli leaders — has threatened reprisals against Iran, which fired some 200 ballistic missiles on Tuesday. Several got through Israel’s air defenses, though only one death was reported. Later Wednesday, Haaretz said the Iranian attack damaged several air force bases.

Yair Lapid, an Israeli opposition leader and former prime minister, said Iran must pay “a significant and heavy” price, while Naftali Bennett, one of Netanyahu’s rivals, called for Israel to “destroy Iran’s nuclear program, its central energy facilities.”

Those calls highlighted how the dynamic has shifted since April, when Israel hit back at a smaller Iranian missile barrage with a limited strike on an air base that caused little damage. This time, Israel could target the OPEC member’s oil infrastructure, military bases and — in potentially the most extreme scenario — its nuclear facilities. 

That would almost certainly drive a new wave of escalation in a conflict that began when Hamas, also backed by Iran, swarmed southern Israel from Gaza on Oct. 7 last year, killing 1,200 people and kidnapping 250. Israel’s subsequent offensive on Gaza has killed 41,000 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in the Palestinian territory.

The fighting has already spread across several parts of the region, with Israel carrying out strikes on Yemen and suspected ones in Syria in recent days, as well as the bombardment of Lebanon and still-ongoing campaign in Gaza. In the past month, Israel has killed many of Hezbollah’s senior leaders, including chief Hassan Nasrallah. Israeli air strikes on Lebanon have killed hundreds of civilians in the past two weeks according to Lebanese officials. 

The risk of a broader, more open-ended conflict pushed Brent crude higher for a second day, to above $75 a barrel earlier Wednesday. It’s still down over the last month, suggesting traders do not believe there will be major supply disruptions in Iran or other parts of the oil-rich Gulf.

The US, which classifies Hezbollah and Hamas as terrorist groups, has stepped up military and financial support for Israel in the year since the Oct. 7 attacks. Biden administration officials have also spent months calling for restraint in the Israeli campaigns in Gaza and now Lebanon. 

“We have real wariness about an extended or substantial ground set of operations in Lebanon,” Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said at an event on Wednesday. Campbell obliquely referenced continued tension between allies over Netanyahu’s latest military venture, acknowledging that some of Israel’s actions have complicated the picture. 

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was more blunt. He said it was time to stop a cycle of escalation “that is leading the people of the Middle East straight over the cliff.”

“Each escalation has served as a pretext for the next,” Guterres told an emergency UN Security Council session Wednesday on the latest developments in the region. Guterres condemned Iran’s missile strike, though his failure to do so explicitly in earlier comments drew charges of bias from Israel, and Foreign Minister Israel Katz said the UN chief would be barred from entering Israel if he tries to travel there. 

The initial signals from Iran after Nasrallah’s killing were that it would avoid a direct attack on Israel, with new President Masoud Pezeshkian having repeatedly said in recent weeks he wants better relations with the West to ease economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

Yet hardline elements within the government and Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps probably convinced Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei he needed to act more firmly with Hezbollah being hammered.

“The next issue is how Israel responds,” said Wendy Sherman, who served as the State Department’s No. 2 official until 2023. “The trick, of course, always is — if you’re precise in your response, you can do exactly what you want to do and no more. But if something goes awry, you can escalate past the point that you wanted to escalate.”

—With assistance from Courtney McBride and Iain Marlow.