The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said they have killed some 440 Hezbollah members since the start of a ground operation in Lebanon earlier this month.
On Tuesday, the IDF announced “limited ground raids” into southern Lebanon, following a weeks-long bombing campaign that killed more than a dozen high-ranking Hezbollah members, including the pro-Palestinian armed group’s longstanding leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
“We are pushing Hezbollah north,” IDF spokesman, Brigadier General Daniel Hagri, said in a statement on Saturday. “We eliminated about 440 terrorists from the beginning of the operation, of which 30 were commanding officers.”
Throughout Saturday, the armed group launched more than 130 projectiles into Israel, the IDF said. The Israeli Air Force responded by a series of new strikes on the Lebanese capital overnight.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah said that it thwarted an Israeli incursion into the border city of Odaisseh on Saturday, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency.
Earlier this week, the IDF announced its first losses in the ground operation, amid media reports of heavy fighting. Eight Israeli commandos were killed in two separate firefights, the army said on Wednesday.
Hezbollah and Israel have routinely exchanged fire since the onset of the conflict in Gaza, which erupted almost a year ago after a deadly Hamas raid into Israeli territory. The Lebanese armed group has vowed to continue attacking Israel until a ceasefire is reached in Gaza.
More than 2,000 people have been killed by Israeli strikes on Lebanon since last October, the Lebanese Health Ministry said on Wednesday.