The Israel Defense Forces announced the death of eight of their soldiers during combat operations against the armed formations of the Shia movement Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
The IDF announced the first losses during a ground operation in the republic, notes the newspaper The Times of Israel.
According to the army press office, Captains Eitan Yitzhak Oster, Harel Ettinger and Itai Ariel Giat, Sergeants Noam Barzilai, Or Manzur and Nazaar Itkin, Senior Sergeants Almken Terefe and Ido Breuer were killed. An officer and four soldiers from the special forces "Egoz" and a private from the intelligence unit of the Golan brigade were seriously wounded.
According to the press service, the losses of the Defense Army since the beginning of the operation in the Gaza Strip and on the borders of the Palestinian enclave have reached 346 people. The total number of Israeli soldiers killed during the new round of the Middle East conflict was 723.
On September 23, Israel launched operation "Arrows of the North" against Hezbollah formations and carried out massive airstrikes on military targets of the Shiite movement in Lebanon. On September 30, the army announced that it had launched a limited-scale ground operation in the border areas in the south of the republic.