Attack on Israel injures 11 as Iran vows revenge
An attack on a central Israeli town injured 11 people, as Iran’s Supreme Leader vowed a punishing response to Israel’s attack last week.
The pre-dawn strike on Tira, which followed air raid sirens across central Israel, was one of several barrages fired from Lebanon early on Saturday.
Many of the projectiles were intercepted by Israeli air defences, while others landed in unpopulated areas.
The Magen David Adom emergency service said 11 people were hurt by shrapnel and glass shards in a direct strike on a building in Tira, a predominantly Israeli Arab town.
Three were in moderate condition, while the others suffered mild injuries.
Footage showed significant damage to the roof and top floor of the three-story building and cars below.
Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group claimed responsibility for firing missiles toward the Israeli military’s Unit 8200 base in Glilot on the edge of Tel Aviv and for attacking central Israel’s Palmachim Air Base with explosive drones, saying they “scored precise hits on targets”.
Israel’s military has not confirmed if either the base was targeted or hit.
Hezbollah said the Saturday dawn missile attack directed at Glilot was in retaliation for the “massacres” that are being committed by Israel.
It was likely that the claim was linked to the strike on Tira, which is about 20 kilometres away from Glilot.
Tamar Abdel Hai, a resident of Tira, said that the attack was frightening.
“I call upon all the leaders in the Arab world and the leaders in Israel and to everyone who can help to end this war. It’s enough,” he said.
Hezbollah also said that its fighters have fired salvos of rockets into northern Israeli towns including Dalton, Yesud HaMa’ala and Bar Yohai.
The early Saturday attacks may be only a precursor to a more severe strike against Israel.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, on Saturday threatened Israel and the US with a punishing response over attacks on Iran and its allies following Israel’s October 26 air strikes that targeted Iran’s military bases and other locations.
“The enemies, whether the Zionist regime or the United States of America, will definitely receive a crushing response to what they are doing to Iran and the Iranian nation and to the resistance front,” Khamenei said.
A further attack by Iran, which has already launched two direct attacks against Israel this year, could push the wider Middle East closer to a broader conflict.
Israel is already battling the Iran-backed militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The fight against Hezbollah has weakened the group but has also taken a heavy toll on southern Lebanon and other parts of the country.
On Friday, Israel launched dozens of intense air strikes across Lebanon’s northeastern farming villages, killing at least 52 people and wounding scores more, the Lebanese Health Ministry reported.
Since the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah erupted in 2023, more than 2897 people have been killed and 13,150 wounded in Lebanon, according to a Health Ministry update early on Friday.
United Nations agencies estimate that Israel’s ground invasion and bombardment of Lebanon has displaced 1.4 million people.
Residents of Israel’s northern communities near Lebanon, roughly 60,000 people, have also been displaced for more than a year.
Israeli strikes in Gaza killed at least 42 people in the last 24 hours
A series of Israeli strikes on Nuseirat, a refugee camp in central Gaza, killed at least 42 people, more than a half of them women and children, in the last 24 hours, Dr. Marwan Abu Naser, director of Al-Awda Hospital that received the casualties, told The Associated Press.
Another 150 were wounded, he said.
The World Health Organization has said it plans to finally resume its polio vaccination campaign on Saturday, but only in Gaza City as towns further north remain inaccessible as Israel tightens its siege.
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