Israel escalates attacks across Lebanon as two soldiers killed 

Two Israeli soldiers have been killed in southern Lebanon, the country’s first fatalities since fighting between Israel and Hezbollah resumed last week.

The soldiers died on Sunday in combat, the Israeli military said.

“Master Sergeant Maher Khatar, aged 38, from Majdal Shams … fell during combat in southern Lebanon,” the military said, confirming that a second soldier died in the same incident.

The deaths came as Israel widened its military campaign in Lebanon, striking for the first time into the heart of Beirut, a significant escalation in a conflict that has killed 394 people in Lebanon in a week, including 83 children, 42 women and nine rescue workers, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health.

Beirut targeted

Early on Sunday, an Israeli drone struck a hotel room in Raouche, a seafront neighbourhood of the Lebanese capital popular with tourists and, more recently, with thousands of displaced Lebanese who had fled fighting elsewhere.

At least four people were killed 10 were wounded, Lebanese health officials said.

Israel said the attack targeted senior commanders of Iran’s elite Quds Force, the overseas operations arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

“The commanders of the Quds Force’s Lebanon Corps operated to advance terror attacks against the state of Israel,” the Israeli military said.

Raouche had been spared during Israel and Hezbollah’s last war, which ended with a ceasefire in November 2024 although Israel had engaged in near-daily violations of the agreement.

Lebanon was pulled back into war on Monday when Hezbollah fired rockets and drones into Israel in response to the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in joint Israeli-United States air strikes last month.

Israel responded with a ferocious air assault across the south, east and Beirut’s southern suburbs. Israeli ground forces, meanwhile, have been pushing into southern Lebanon, seizing hilltops near the border.

Tanks and armoured bulldozers have been massing at the frontier, fuelling fears of a full-scale Israeli invasion.

Hezbollah has continued launching rockets and drones into northern Israel daily, saying its forces were involved in clashes with Israeli troops near the border town of Aitaroun on Sunday.

Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from Ramallah, said “there are now serious concerns being raised” in Israel about attacks being launched from Lebanon.

“There is no advanced notice for these northern communities. They have a few seconds to rush to the shelters, and there is now consideration of evacuating those northern communities.”

Hezbollah, Odeh said, has been able to target cities as far as Nahariya and Haifa as its forces battle Israel. “Haifa, that strategic city which has a lot of military and intelligence assets, is also being targeted by Hezbollah and Iran.”

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said: “Our country has been drawn into a devastating war that we did not seek and did not choose,” warning that the scale of displacement could produce “unprecedented” humanitarian and political consequences.

Israel said it has killed about 200 Hezbollah fighters since hostilities resumed.

The armed group has not published its own toll.