Middle East war: Hezbollah says fighting Israeli forces who landed in east Lebanon

Beirut: Hezbollah on Monday said it was engaging Israeli forces who landed in eastern Lebanon by helicopter across the Syrian border, the second such operation since the outbreak of the latest conflict with Israel.

Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East war last week when Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah attacked Israel in response to the killing of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during US-Israeli strikes.

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Israel, which has kept up strikes targeting Hezbollah despite a 2024 ceasefire, launched multiple waves of strikes last week across Lebanon and sent ground troops into border areas.

In a statement on Monday, Hezbollah said it detected "the infiltration of approximately 15 Israeli enemy helicopters" from the Syrian side of the border in eastern Lebanon, an area where Hezbollah holds sway.

The group said its fighters "engaged the helicopters and the infiltrating force with appropriate weapons, and the confrontation" was ongoing.

Lebanon's state-run National News Agency earlier reported "fierce clashes... towards the outskirts of the town of Nabi Sheet to repel Israeli forces that carried out a landing by helicopters" in the area.

Two Hezbollah officials in the Bekaa region, where Nabi Sheet is located, told AFP that an Israeli helicopter was downed.

The Israeli army did not immediately comment on the incident.

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It is the second such attack after an Israeli commando operation in Nabi Sheet and its surrounding areas overnight Friday failed to find the remains of Ron Arad, an airman missing since 1986, killing 41 people.

In the south, Hezbollah said on Monday that it targeted Israeli soldiers entering the Lebanese border towns of Odaisseh and Aitaroun with artillery shells.

It also said it clashed with Israeli soldiers in Odaisseh.

Lebanon's health minister Rakan Nassereddine on Sunday said Israeli strikes on Lebanon killed 394 people over the past week, including 83 children and 42 women.

The toll includes four killed in an Israeli strike on a central Beirut hotel early on Sunday, the first attack on central Beirut during the latest war.

Israel's military had said it "conducted a precise strike" targeting "five commanders" in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force, its foreign operations arm, "while they were meeting at a hotel in Beirut".