Around eight to 12 Israeli soldiers were killed and several others were wounded in several exchanges with Hezbollah in a gunfight inside Lebanon. According to ABP’s team on the ground covering the war in the Middle East, Israeli forces have advanced some 400 metres in side Beruit territory, the first time since Israel began its ground advance earlier this week. Israeli soldiers encounter Hezbollah fighters for the first time on the second day of the ground invasion of Lebanon. Meanwhile, visuals from the streets of Lebanon showed widespread destruction done by overnight Israeli airstrikes on Hezbollah-dominated neighbourhoods. Several shops, businesses and people’s homes were razed as Israel continued to drop bombs on Hezbollah properties. According to Lebanon’s army, Israeli soldiers made a brief incursion into the country’s south but withdrew later after Hezbollah fighters encountered them. “Israeli enemy forces breached the Blue Line by approximately 400 metres (yards) into Lebanese territory” in two areas, “then withdrew a short time later”, the army said in a statement on X, referring to the demarcation line between Lebanon and Israel. Hezbollah also claimed that it had destroyed three Israeli Merkava tanks with rockets near the border town of Maroun El Ras.