Hezbollah militants, Israeli soldiers engage in deadly fighting inside Lebanon

Hezbollah said its fighters were engaging Israeli forces inside Lebanon on Wednesday, reporting ground clashes for the first time since Israel began pushing into its northern neighbour in a campaign to hammer the Iran-backed armed group.

The Israeli military said regular infantry and armoured units were joining its ground operations in Lebanon, a day after Iran attacked Israel in a strike that raised fears the oil-producing Middle East could be engulfed in a wider conflict.

Eight Israeli soldiers were killed in combat in south Lebanon, the Israeli military said in a statement on Wednesday. 

The military has said the ground incursion is largely aimed at destroying tunnels and other infrastructure on the border, and that there were no plans for a wider operation targeting Beirut or major cities in southern Lebanon.

Iran said on Wednesday its missile attack on Israel, its biggest military assault on the country, was over, barring further provocation, while Israel and the United States promised to hit back.

In the Israeli town of Hod Hasharon, northeast of Tel Aviv, Shmulik Succary walked a CBC News crew through his home.

One of the 200 Iranian missiles launched at Israel on Tuesday landed metres away from the 83-year-old's home, blowing the windows out and giving him and his family a scare. 

Succary said he and his family rushed to the bomb shelter at the bottom of the stairs but, even there, they could hear the sound of the missile hitting the ground nearby.

"The house was trembling," he said. "The house was under a multitude of glass, pieces of glass … No doors … No windows." 

On Wednesday, Succary was still cleaning up the mess from the missile strike. He said he was angry at many things regarding the Iranian strikes and the upcoming one year anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack. 

"There's a certain tension of course. It's a very big mess," he said. 

Speaking on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the new year in Judaism, Succary said that what is supposed to be a happy holiday is now filled with mixed emotions.

"You can start a war, you know its beginning, you never know how it ends," he said. "And that's the problem."

Hezbollah said it was clashing with Israeli troops in the border town of Maroun el-Ras, and had destroyed three Israeli Merkava tanks there. The group also fired rockets into Israel.