The Israeli military has announced its first combat death since launching ground operations in Lebanon this week. The military said on Wednesday that a 22-year-old in a commando brigade was killed in combat in Lebanon. Israeli ground troops have carried out incursions into Lebanon against Hezbollah, and Tehran fired a barrage of ballistic missiles on Israel late Tuesday.

Israeli police said on Wednesday that a total of seven people were killed in a shooting attack in Tel Aviv on Tuesday evening minutes before the Iranian missile barrage. Two Palestinian men from the Israeli-occupied West Bank town of Hebron opened fire in the Jaffa neighborhood of Tel Aviv, including shooting directly into a light rail carriage crowded with passengers that was stopped at a station.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei slammed the presence of American and European nations in the Middle East in his first remarks since Tehran fired a barrage of ballistic missiles at Israel.

Khamenei said on Wednesday that their presence is a source of “conflicts, wars, concerns and enmities” but made no mention of the missile attack the night before.

“Regional nations can manage themselves and ... They will live together in peace,” Khamenei was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.

He said Iran is hopeful of getting “rid of the enemies’ evil” and also urged Western nations to “cut their badness.” Iran has long seen the US troop presence on its doorstep as a threat and demanded their evacuation from neighboring Iraq and elsewhere in the region.

The escalation on multiple fronts has raised fears of a wider war in the Middle East that could draw in Iran - which backs Hezbollah and Hamas - as well as the United States, which has rushed military assets to the region in support of Israel.

Hezbollah, widely seen as the most powerful armed group in the region, said its fighters clashed with Israeli troops in two places inside Lebanon near the border. The Israeli military said ground forces backed by airstrikes had killed militants in “close-range engagements” without saying where.

Israel said it intercepted many of the missiles, and officials in Washington said US destroyers assisted in Israel’s defence. Iran said most of its missiles hit their targets. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed late Tuesday to retaliate against Iran, which he said “made a big mistake tonight and it will pay for it.”

An Iranian commander threatened wider strikes on infrastructure if Israel retaliates against Iran’s territory.

The United Nations Security Council called an emergency meeting for Wednesday to address the spiraling conflict.

Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire across the Lebanon border almost daily since October 8, the day after Hamas’ cross-border attack on October 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 Israelis and took 250 others hostage.

Israel declared war on the militant group in the Gaza Strip in response. More than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory, and just over half of the dead were women and children, according to local health officials.

The Lebanese army said Israeli forces breached approximately 400 metres into Lebanese territory on Wednesday and then withdrew “after a short period.”

The statement was the first official acknowledgement from Beirut that Israeli forces have carried out a ground incursion into Lebanon.

Earlier in the day, Hezbollah’s chief spokesman, Mohammed Afif, told reporters touring sites of Israeli airstrikes in Beirut’s southern suburbs that Hezbollah had “fought a heroic battle this morning” in the southern villages of Odaisseh and Maroun al-Ras against Israeli soldiers who launched a ground incursion into Lebanon.

Israel foreign Minister says he is barring the United Nations secretary general from entering Israel, accusing him of being biased against the country. Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on Wednesday that he was declaring Antonio Guterres “persona non grata” and that he would be prevented from entering Israel. The move deepens an already wide rift between Israel and the United Nations.

Greece’s foreign ministry said a Greek national was among the people killed in Tuesday evening’s shooting attack in the Jaffa neighborhood of Tel Aviv.