Family and friends of Israeli soldier Captain Eitan Itzhak Oster, killed during an Israeli ground operation in Southern Lebanon, attend his funeral at the Mount Herzl Military Cemetery. Jerusalem, Oct. 2, 2024. (Oren Ben Hakoon/Flash90)

(JTA) — In the first casualties in Lebanon since Israel launched a ground incursion this week, eight Israeli soldiers were killed in clashes with Hezbollah fighters.

The army said Wednesday that six soldiers were killed in one clash and that two were killed in another.

Israeli sent ground troops into Lebanon on Monday night for the first time since 2006, in a bid to further degrade Hezbollah and distance it from the border following a year of cross-border missile fire that the terror group started on Oct. 8 of last year, following Hamas’ attack the previous day.

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In recent weeks Israel has destroyed much of Hezbollah’s infrastructure and killed its top leadership, including its longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah, in air strikes. More than 1,000 people have been killed in Lebanon in the strikes.

The army has said that its incursion is meant to be limited. The ground troops’ mission is to destroy Hezbollah arms depots close to the border along with its tunnel systems. Israel’s 1982-2000 occupation of southern Lebanon, meant to deter attacks on northern Israel became massively unpopular, spurred the rise of Hezbollah, and cost hundreds of Israeli lives. Israel fought another war against Hezbollah in 2006 after the group kidnapped two Israeli soldiers.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently added to Israel’s war aims the return of civilians to their homes on the northern border. The other war aims are the destruction of Hamas in Gaza and the return of the hostages that terrorist group still holds captive there.

The conflict on the northern front kept to a simmer for months after last October, although it led to the evacuation of tens of thousands of Israeli and Lebanese civilians living along the border, and killed dozens of civilians in both countries. Hundreds of Hezbollah operatives and approximately 20 Israeli soldiers were also killed before the conflict escalated in recent weeks.

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