Israel bombs Gaza and Lebanon after an attack on Iran in less than 24 hours

This Sunday, Israel bombed Hezbollah positions in Lebanon and Hamas in Gazawithout giving truce to the conflict a day after an Israeli attack on Iran raised fears of a conflagration in the Middle East.

The Israeli army claimed that he killed “70 Hezbollah terrorists and bombed more than 120 targets” of the pro-Iranian Shiite militia in the last 24 hours in southern Lebanon. He also reported the death of four soldiers in combat.

In the Gaza Strip the army indicated that eliminated “40 terrorists in Jabaliya” in the last 24 hours, in the north of the Palestinian enclave, where it launched a new offensive on October 6 to prevent, it claims, the Islamist movement Hamas from regrouping.

>>> See also: Israeli attacks on Iran leave 10 dead, according to local sources: several countries ask for restraint

Israel wages war against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Both groups are backed by Iran and belong to what the Islamic Republic calls the “axis of resistance.” to the Hebrew State.

While the international community multiplies calls for containment, Iran asserted its right to defend itself following Saturday’s Israeli airstrikes against military facilities in several Iranian regions.

Iranian authorities said the strikes caused “limited damage” and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the strikes should neither be “exaggerated nor minimized.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu He said the airstrike against Iran was “precise and powerful” and met all its objectives.

“We promised that we would respond to the Iranian attack and on Saturday we attacked,” Netanyahu said in a speech this Sunday, coinciding with the ceremonies of the first Hebrew anniversary of October 7, 2023, the day of the Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the conflict in Gaza.

The Israeli bombings were a response to the October 1 Iranian missile attack on Israel. Tehran presented its aggression as retaliation for the Israeli bombings against Lebanon that cost the lives of an Iranian general and the head of Hezbollah, Hasan Nasrallah, at the end of September.

He also justified the operation as a response to the assassination on Iranian soil of the then Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, blamed on Israel.

Painful concessions: failure of a ceasefire

Witnesses reported several bombings in northern Gaza on Sunday, ruled by the Islamist movement Hamas since 2007 and under Israeli siege.

At the Al Ahli hospital in Gaza, Jihad Muqat mourned the death of his wife and two daughters, who died in Jabaliya.

“Aline was the oldest, my dear Lulu, she was three and a half years old, and Sama was 12 days old. I also buried my daughter Lara, who was two years old,” she said through tears.

AFP

The bombings and fighting in Gaza were only interrupted for a week in November 2023, during a truce that allowed the release of hostages held by Hamas by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons.

But since then Negotiations for a new ceasefire have failed. Indirect talks are due to resume this Sunday in Doha between Israel, the United States and Qatar.

The war in Gaza began with the Hamas attack in Israel on October 7, 2023, in which Islamist militiamen They killed 1,206 people, mainly civiliansand captured 251, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data that includes hostages killed in captivity.

Of those kidnapped that day, 97 remain captive in Gaza, but 34 of them were declared dead by the army.

In response, Israel launched an offensive in Gaza that has already left 42,924 dead, mostly civilians, according to data from the Ministry of Health of the Hamas government, considered reliable by the UN.

“Painful concessions” will have to be made to free the Gaza hostages, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said. “Not all objectives can be achieved through military operations alone,” he added.

Bombings in Lebanon

After weakening Hamas in Gaza, the Israeli army shifted the bulk of its operations to southern Lebanon in September, where Hezbollah and the Israeli army had been fighting since October 8, 2023. That day, the Shiite movement began firing rockets towards Israeli territory in support of Hamas.

The Lebanese press agency ANI reported on Sunday Israeli bombings in the southern suburbs of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold, and near Tire in the south of the country.

Hezbollah, for its part, announced that it bombed a military base near the Israeli city of Haifa.