Hezbollah joins Gaza war as fighting continues in the streets of southern Israel

MADRID, 8 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Lebanese Hezbollah militias have joined the open conflict between Hamas and Israel with a series of attacks against Israeli positions in the border area of ​​the Shebaa farms, while the militias of the Palestinian movement and the Israeli military continue fighting in at least seven points of southern Israel after the first night of the war that began this past Saturday with the massive attack launched from the Gaza Strip.

The military wing of Hamas, the Ezzedin al Qassam Brigades, have confirmed that its troops, who yesterday carried out an unprecedented incursion into Israeli territory, are still engaged in combat against the Army in seven towns along the border between Israel and in the enclave, including Ofakim, Sderot, Yad Mordechai, Kfar Aza, Be'eri, Yeted and Kissufim.

Sderot has been one of the main sources of conflict this past night after at least a dozen militiamen took control of a police station in the city. After hours of clashes, the Israeli Police have killed all its occupants and demolished the place.

Although the Sderot Police have not offered figures for the officers killed at the police station, the Israeli security forces have confirmed at least 56 deaths among their ranks during the first day of clashes: 30 police officers and 26 soldiers, including the commander of the Nahal brigade, Colonel Yonatan Steinberg, 42, at the Kerem Shalom pass, near the double border with Gaza and Egypt.

The general chapter of victims leaves for now 600 dead and 2,048 injured in Israel, to which must be added 313 dead and 1,990 injured in the Gaza Strip, according to the latest updated balance sheets from the respective Israeli and enclave Health Ministries. Palestinian. The Israeli Army has reported at least 400 militants killed since the beginning of the fighting, an amount not confirmed by the Palestinians.

It remains to be determined exactly how many Israelis are now in the hands of Palestinian militias following the wave of kidnappings that accompanied the raid. Yesterday Israeli security forces released figures that were around fifty, but a spokesman for the Palestinian militias has indicated that the real figure is "much higher" than the estimates offered by Israel.

In any case, the spokesman for the Israeli Army, Daniel Hagari, has assured that the military intends to evacuate the residents of all the towns bordering Gaza within a maximum period of 24 hours, amidst pleas for help from the population that has been on Saturday hidden in shelters or barricaded in their homes. "We have terrorists roaming freely around our kibbutz," a resident of Kfar Aza told the newspaper 'Haaretz' by telephone this morning. "The Army has to send troops immediately."

To this we must add the counterattack operation launched by Israel on the Gaza Strip, which has focused particularly in recent hours on targets of senior Hamas officials, including its head of Intelligence, whose residence in the enclave has been hit by a missile Additionally, Israel has attacked Islamic Jihad branches and arsenals.

Meanwhile, and as the United Nations feared this past Saturday, the war in Gaza has spread to Lebanon with the attack launched from there by the Hezbollah militias against Israeli positions in the Shebaa farms; a series of mortar shots fired as a gesture of "solidarity", in the words of the Shiite party-militia.

According to its statement, Hezbollah militias have announced that they have attacked three Israeli military sites in the disputed Mount Dov region, in which the Israel Defense Forces have not reported any injuries, The Times of Israel newspaper has reported. .

Specifically, Hezbollah has attacked "three positions of the Zionist enemy in the occupied Shebaa farms in Radar, Zebdine and Roueissat el Aalam, using numerous artillery shells and guided rockets," according to the Hezbollah note collected by 'L'Orient le Jour'.

The attack took place "in solidarity with the victorious Palestinian resistance and the heroic Palestinian people", and was part of the "path to the liberation of occupied Lebanese land", according to the text.

The bombings have been confirmed by the UN force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, on high alert since yesterday, specifically "several rockets fired from southeastern Lebanon towards Israeli-occupied territory in the general area of ​​Kafr Chouba, and artillery fire from Israel to Lebanon in response.

In response, the Israeli Army announced shortly after that it had carried out a drone attack against "Hezbollah infrastructure" in the area and, according to a military source, the location was a tent that the formation set up on Israeli territory. months ago.