More than four hundred fighters of the Iran-backed Lebanese armed group Hezbollah have been killed in the new conflict that began following US and Israeli attacks, according to Reuters news agency.
The Reuters report stated that two sources familiar with the group’s casualty figures provided this information.
The conflict began after Hezbollah launched its first barrage of rockets toward Israel on 2 March in retaliation for the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
A clear picture of Hezbollah’s total casualties from Israel’s expanded airstrikes and ground operations in Lebanon had not been available until now. While the group has announced the deaths of individual fighters separately, it has not released an overall figure.
Previously, during the 2023-24 conflict with Israel, Hezbollah regularly published casualty figures. It was known that around 5,000 fighters were killed at that time.
On the other hand, the Israeli military has claimed that at least 700 Hezbollah members have been killed in the past four weeks of fighting in Lebanon. Among them, it is claimed, are several hundred members of the special unit “Radwan Force.”
On Friday, the Lebanese Health Ministry reported that 1,142 people have been killed so far in the country from Israeli airstrikes and ground attacks. Among the dead are 122 children, 83 women, and 42 healthcare workers. However, it was not specified how many of these were fighters and how many were civilians.
On the same day, the Israeli army reported that one soldier and one combat officer were seriously injured during operations in Lebanon.
Earlier, Tel Aviv also acknowledged the deaths of four soldiers in the fighting in southern Lebanon.
