Source: THE AS­SO­CI­AT­ED PRESS

The Mid­dle East moved clos­er to a long-feared re­gion­al war the day af­ter Iran fired a bar­rage of mis­siles at Is­rael. Iran launched at least 180 mis­siles in­to Is­rael, the lat­est in a se­ries of es­ca­lat­ing at­tacks in a years­long con­flict be­tween Is­rael and Iran and its Arab al­lies. 

Ear­li­er this week, Is­rael said it be­gan lim­it­ed ground in­cur­sions in­to Lebanon tar­get­ing the Iran-backed Hezbol­lah mil­i­tant group.

A sum­ma­ry of the key is­sues sur­round­ing the con­flict and the lat­est up­dates, fol­low be­low…

Here’s what to know

How we got here: In re­cent days, a wave of Is­raeli airstrikes has killed Hezbol­lah leader Has­san Nas­ral­lah and sev­er­al of his top com­man­ders, while dri­ving hun­dreds of thou­sands of Lebanese from their homes. Is­rael then launched what it said was a lim­it­ed ground in­cur­sion in south­ern Lebanon.

Why did Iran launch mis­siles to­ward Is­rael? Iran said the mis­siles were in re­sponse to the killing of Hezbol­lah’s leader and his top com­man­ders. It al­so men­tioned Is­mail Haniyeh, a top leader in Hamas who was as­sas­si­nat­ed in Tehran in a sus­pect­ed Is­raeli at­tack in Ju­ly.

Have there been clash­es be­tween Hezbol­lah and Is­raeli troops? There were no signs of ground com­bat in south­ern Lebanon, and the Is­raeli of­fi­cial said there had been no clash­es with Hezbol­lah.

Is­raeli mil­i­tary says a sol­dier has died in fight­ing in Lebanon

The Is­raeli mil­i­tary has an­nounced its first com­bat death since launch­ing ground op­er­a­tions in Lebanon this week.

The mil­i­tary said on Wednes­day that Cap­tain Ei­tan Itzhak Os­ter, a 22-year-old in a com­man­do brigade, was killed in com­bat in Lebanon.

The mil­i­tary didn’t im­me­di­ate­ly pro­vide oth­er de­tails.

Dan­ish po­lice ar­rest 3 men over ex­plo­sions near the Is­raeli Em­bassy

By JAN M. OLSEN

Dan­ish po­lice say three men have been ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with the ex­plo­sions overnight near the Is­raeli Em­bassy in Copen­hagen.

Two men were de­tained on a train at Copen­hagen’s cen­tral sta­tion while a third man was ar­rest­ed ”else­where” in the Dan­ish cap­i­tal, po­lice said Wednes­day. They didn’t iden­ti­fy the men.

The Ek­stra Bladet news­pa­per ran pho­tos of a man in a white haz­mat suit be­ing tak­en away by po­lice on a train plat­form at the cen­tral sta­tion.

Ex­tra se­cu­ri­ty was planned around the main syn­a­gogue in down­town Copen­hagen, the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty said and urged peo­ple “to be aware when mov­ing in pub­lic spaces.”

Lebanese army says Is­raeli troops car­ried out a brief in­cur­sion in­to Lebanon

By AB­BY SEWELL

The Lebanese army says Is­raeli forces breached ap­prox­i­mate­ly 400 me­ters (yards) 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.

Is­raeli po­lice say 7 peo­ple died in Tues­day’s shoot­ing at­tack in a Tel Aviv sub­urb

By MELANIE LID­MAN, NICHOLAS PA­PHI­TIS

Is­raeli po­lice said on Wednes­day that a to­tal of sev­en peo­ple were killed in a shoot­ing at­tack in Tel Aviv the pre­vi­ous evening, min­utes be­fore the Iran­ian mis­sile bar­rage.

One of the peo­ple killed was a Greek na­tion­al, au­thor­i­ties in Athens said. He was a res­i­dent of Jerusalem.

Two Pales­tin­ian men from the Is­raeli-oc­cu­pied West Bank town of He­bron opened fire in the Jaf­fa neigh­bour­hood on Tues­day night, in­clud­ing shoot­ing di­rect­ly in­to a light rail car­riage crowd­ed with pas­sen­gers that was stopped at a sta­tion.

On Wednes­day, lo­cals left flow­ers and can­dles at the train stop, where bul­let holes pep­pered the signs and train stop bench­es.

Maya Brand­wine, a 33-year-old res­i­dent of the neigh­bor­hood, said she was at a lo­cal cof­fee shop on the street when the shoot­ing broke out. Dur­ing the sub­se­quent Iran­ian mis­sile at­tack she end­ed up shel­ter­ing in a bomb shel­ter with po­lice car­ry­ing out sweeps for ad­di­tion­al sus­pects.

Is­rael’s for­eign min­is­ter bars UN chief from en­ter­ing Is­rael

By TIA GOLD­EN­BERG

Is­rael’s for­eign min­is­ter says he has barred 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.

Iran’s supreme leader slams US pres­ence in the Mideast in his first re­marks since mis­sile at­tack on Is­rael

By NASS­ER KARI­MI

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ay­a­tol­lah Ali Khamenei has slammed the pres­ence of Amer­i­can and Eu­ro­pean na­tions in the Mid­dle East.

The re­marks by Khamenei on Wednes­day were his first since Tehran fired a bar­rage of bal­lis­tic mis­siles at Is­rael the pre­vi­ous night. He made no men­tion of that at­tack.

He said West­ern pres­ence is a source of “con­flicts, wars, con­cerns and en­mi­ties” and added that “re­gion­al na­tions can man­age them­selves and ... live to­geth­er in peace.”

Iran has long seen the pres­ence of U.S. troops in the Mid­dle East as a threat.