Hezbollah clashes with Israeli forces attempting to infiltrate Lebanese border town

Israeli army says it is striking Hezbollah targets in Beirut

An Israeli mobile artillery unit fires a shell from northern Israel towards Lebanon on Wednesday. AP

Live updates: Follow the latest from Israel-Gaza

Hezbollah fighters have repelled an Israeli force attempting to infiltrate the southern Lebanese border town of Odaisseh, the first report of on-the-ground, face-to-face fighting, forcing them to retreat, the Lebanese militant group said, adding that it targeted Israeli troops across the border in the early hours of Wednesday.

Hezbollah fighters confronted “an Israeli enemy infantry force that tried to infiltrate into the village of Odaisseh … and clashed with them”, the group said, adding separately that it also targeted Israeli forces at three different points across the border with rockets and artillery.

Israel ordered people in 25 villages to leave their homes. The Israeli army's Arabic spokesman Avichay Adraee told people to go north of the Awali river, not far from the city of Sidon. He said anyone who moved south risked putting themselves in danger.

Meanwhile, the Israeli army announced it was striking Hezbollah targets in Beirut overnight into Wednesday, and, in a separate statement, claimed that over the past few days its fighter jets “conducted a series of targeted strikes in the area of Beirut against a number of weapons production facilities and additional terrorist infrastructure sites in the area”.

On Tuesday, Israel said its troops had begun “targeted ground raids” in southern Lebanon. The UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon stressed that the Israeli offensive did not constitute a “ground incursion” and Hezbollah denied that any troops had crossed the border.

Israel has struck Beirut's southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, repeatedly since last week, saying it is targeting sites belonging to the group, including a strike on Friday that killed its chief Hassan Nasrallah.

The Israeli military ordered residents in southern Beirut to leave their homes before a probable strike on claimed Hezbollah targets.

“You are located near dangerous Hezbollah facilities, which the [Israeli military] will act against with force in the near future,” military spokesman Lt Col Avichay Adraee said on X, mentioning the area of Haret Hreik in south Beirut.

Israeli strikes against Hezbollah targets in several regions of Lebanon killed 55 people and wounded 156 on Tuesday, the Lebanese Health Ministry said.

Lebanon's disaster management agency had said earlier that 1,873 people had been killed and 9,134 wounded as a result of Israeli attacks in the country since October 8 last year.

Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said there could be as many as one million people displaced from their homes in the country, with authorities registering almost 240,000 crossings into Syria since September 23.

Hezbollah, which suffered heavy losses in a spate of attacks last month, began low-intensity strikes on Israeli troops a day after its Palestinian ally Hamas carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, which led to Israel's devastating assault on Gaza.