Israeli defense minister warns an attack on Iran would be ‘lethal’ and ‘surprising’

Israeli defense minister warns an attack on Iran would be ‘lethal’ and ‘surprising’
The remains of an Emad ballistic missile are displayed at Julis army base in southern Israel on October 9, 2024, days after a missile attack by Iran on Israel. (REUTERS)
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Updated 10 October 2024
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Israeli defense minister warns an attack on Iran would be ‘lethal’ and ‘surprising’

Israeli defense minister warns an attack on Iran would be ‘lethal’ and ‘surprising’
  • US president Joe Biden says he would not support a retaliatory strike on Tehran’s nuclear sites

JERUSALEM: Israel’s defense minister warned on Wednesday that his country’s retaliation for a recent Iranian missile attack will be “lethal” and “surprising,” while the Israeli military pushed ahead with a large-scale operation in northern Gaza and a ground offensive in Lebanon against Hezbollah militants.
On the diplomatic front, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Joe Biden held their first call in seven weeks, with a White House press secretary saying the call included discussions on Israel’s deliberations over how it will respond to Iran’s attack.
“It was direct, it was productive,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said of the 30-minute call.
The Israeli operation in northern Gaza left dozens of people dead and threatened to shut down three hospitals over a year into the war with Hamas, Palestinian officials and residents said.
The continuing cycle of destruction and death in Gaza, unleashed by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, comes as Israel expands a weeklong ground offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon and considers a major retaliatory strike on Iran following Iran’s Oct. 1 missile barrage.
“Our strike will be lethal, precise and above all, surprising. They won’t understand what happened and how. They will see the results,” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said during a speech to troops. “Whoever strikes us will be harmed and pay a price.”
Iran fired dozens of missiles at Israel on Oct. 1 which the United States helped fend off. Biden has said he would not support a retaliatory strike on sites related to Tehran’s nuclear program.
On Wednesday, Hezbollah claimed a rocket attack that killed two people in the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona. The town’s acting mayor, Ofir Yehezkeli, said the two killed were a couple walking their dogs.

 

Dozens killed in Gaza and survivors fear displacement
In northern Gaza, there was heavy fighting in Jabaliya, an urban refugee camp dating back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation, where Israeli forces have carried out several major operations over the course of the war and then returned as militants regroup. The entire north, including Gaza City, has suffered heavy destruction and has been largely isolated by Israeli forces since late last year.
In Gaza, Jabaliya residents said thousands of people have been trapped in their homes since the operation began Sunday, as Israeli jets and drones buzz overhead and troops battle militants in the streets.
“It’s like hell. We can’t get out,” said Mohamed Awda, who lives with his parents and six siblings. He said there were three bodies in the street outside his home that could not be retrieved because of the fighting.
“The quadcopters are everywhere, and they fire at anyone. You can’t even open the window,” he told The Associated Press by phone, speaking over the sound of explosions.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said it recovered 40 bodies from Jabaliya from Sunday until Tuesday, and another 14 from communities farther north. There are likely more bodies under rubble and in areas that can’t be accessed, it said.
Jabaliya residents fear Israel aims to depopulate the north and turn it into a closed military zone or a Jewish settlement. Israel has blocked all roads except for the main highway leading south from Jabaliya, according to residents.
“We are concerned about the displacement to the south,” Ahmed Qamar, who lives in Jabaliya with his wife, children and parents, said in a text message. “People here say clearly that they will die here in northern Gaza and won’t go to southern Gaza.”
Hospitals are under threat
Fadel Naeem, the director of Al-Ahly Hospital in Gaza City, said it had received dozens of wounded people and bodies from the north. “We declared a state of emergency, suspended scheduled surgeries, and discharged patients whose conditions are stable,” he told AP in a text message.
Israel’s offensive has gutted Gaza’s health sector, forcing most hospitals to shut down and leaving the rest only partially functioning.
Naeem said three hospitals farther north — Kamal Adwan, Awda and the Indonesian Hospital — have become almost inaccessible because of the fighting. The Gaza Health Ministry says the Israeli army has ordered all three to evacuate staff and patients. Meanwhile, no humanitarian aid has entered the north since Oct. 1, according to UN data.
Israel’s authority coordinating humanitarian affairs in Palestinian territories said Israel “has not halted the entry or coordination of humanitarian aid entering from its territory into the northern Gaza Strip.”
Israel says it only targets militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas because it fights in residential areas.
Israel ordered the wholesale evacuation of northern Gaza, including Gaza City, in the opening weeks of the war, but hundreds of thousands of people are believed to have remained there. Israel reiterated those instructions over the weekend, telling people to flee south to a humanitarian zone where hundreds of thousands are already crammed into squalid tent camps.
The war began just over a year ago, when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250. They still hold around 100 hostages, a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s offensive has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not say how many were fighters. It has said women and children make up over half of the dead. The offensive has also caused staggering destruction across the territory and displaced around 90 percent of the population of 2.3 million people, often multiple times.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to keep fighting until “total victory” over Hamas and the return of all hostages.
Israel warns Lebanon it could end up like Gaza
On Tuesday, Netanyahu said Lebanon would meet the same fate as Gaza if its people did not rise up against Hezbollah.
Video verified by The Associated Press shows what appears to be a group of Israeli soldiers raising an Israeli flag in a village in southern Lebanon.
In the video, which appears to have been filmed in Maroun A-Ras, three soldiers are seen hoisting up a flag atop a pile of debris. A soldier off camera speaks in Hebrew and refers to the nearby Israeli village of Avivim. The date it was filmed wasn’t immediately known.
The video follows other similar acts that took place throughout Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.
An Israeli strike killed four people and wounded another 10 at a hotel sheltering displaced people in the southern Lebanese town of Wardaniyeh on Wednesday, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said.
An Associated Press reporter in a nearby town heard two sonic booms from Israeli jets before the strike. Plumes of smoke rose from the building after the explosion.
In recent weeks Israel has waged a heavy air campaign across large parts of Lebanon, targeting what it says are Hezbollah rocket launchers and other militant sites. A series of strikes had killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and most of his top commanders.
The Israeli military said Wednesday that Hezbollah has fired more than 12,000 rockets, missiles and drones at Israel in the past year.
 


Archaeologists unearth an ancient Middle Kingdom Egyptian tomb in Luxor

Archaeologists unearth an ancient Middle Kingdom Egyptian tomb in Luxor
Updated 02 November 2024
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Archaeologists unearth an ancient Middle Kingdom Egyptian tomb in Luxor

Archaeologists unearth an ancient Middle Kingdom Egyptian tomb in Luxor
  • Some items such as jewelry in women’s burials were found intact, including a finely crafted necklace with 30 amethyst beads

CAIRO: Archaeologists from Egypt and the United States unearthed an ancient tomb with 11 sealed burials near the famed city of Luxor, Egyptian authorities said.
Egypt’s Tourism and Antiquities Ministry said in a statement Friday the tomb, which dates back to the Middle Kingdom (1938 B.C.-1630 B.C.), was found in the South Asasif necropolis, next to the Temple of Hatshepsut on the Nile’s West Bank in Luxor.
The joint Egyptian-American mission excavating the necropolis found coffins for men, women and children, suggesting that it was a family tomb used for generations during the 12th Dynasty and the beginning of the 13th Dynasty, said Mohamed Ismail Khaled, Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Egypt.
He said ancient floods destroyed most of the burials’ wooden coffins and linen wrappings.
However, some items such as jewelry in women’s burials were found intact, including a finely crafted necklace with 30 amethyst beads and two cylindrical agate beads framing a hippo-head amulet, according to the statement.
Catherine Blakeney, chief American archaeologist with the mission, said they found two copper mirrors, one with a lotus-shaped handle, and the second with a unique design of Hathor, goddess of the sky, women, fertility and love in ancient Egypt.
The discovery came as Egypt has doubled efforts to attract more tourists, a significant source of foreign currency for the cash-strapped North African country. Tourism, which depends heavily on Egypt’s rich Pharaonic artifacts, suffered a long downturn after the political turmoil and violence that followed a 2011 uprising.
Last month, the Grand Egyptian Museum, a mega project near the famed Giza Pyramids, opened 12 halls exhibiting Pharaonic artifacts for visitors as a trial ahead of the yet-unannounced official opening.


Israel army says intercepted three drones over Red Sea

Israel army says intercepted three drones over Red Sea
Updated 02 November 2024
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Israel army says intercepted three drones over Red Sea

Israel army says intercepted three drones over Red Sea
  • Iraqi pro-Iran groups say carried out drone attack on Israel’s Eilat

Jerusalem: The Israeli military said on Saturday it had intercepted three drones launched from the east over the Red Sea, without specifying where they came from.
“A short while ago, three UAVs that were launched from the east were intercepted over the Red Sea.... the UAVs were intercepted prior to crossing into Israeli territory,” the military said in a statement.

Iraqi pro-Iran groups say carried out drone attack

A coalition of pro-Iran groups in Iraq said it carried out four drone attacks on the Israeli resort of Eilat on Saturday, after Israel said it intercepted three drones approaching from the east.
In a statement, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq it was behind the attacks on what it called “four vital targets” in the resort on Israel’s Red Sea coast, all conducted within one hour.


Jordan warns of increasing regional unrest and vows to protect its airspace, borders

Jordan warns of increasing regional unrest and vows to protect its airspace, borders
Updated 02 November 2024
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Jordan warns of increasing regional unrest and vows to protect its airspace, borders

Jordan warns of increasing regional unrest and vows to protect its airspace, borders

CAIRO: Jordan on Saturday warned against intercepting its airspace and the infringement of its borders as unrest increases in the region. 

Jordan reaffirms its “rejection of attempts by some regional parties to violate its airspace, especially by launching drones that some of which have entered the Kingdom’s airspace and parts had fallen inside Jordanian territory,” said government spokesperson Mohammad Momani according to Petra news agency.  

The spokesperson pointed out that two incidents of this sort had occurred recently in the governorates of Irbid and Jerash, describing it as “a threat that Jordan was dealing with within the military rules of engagement, and that it was taking all necessary measures to confront these violations.”

The minister warned of “increasing regional unrest, reiterating that Jordan will not be a conflict zone for any party, and will not allow warplanes, missiles or drones to pass through its airspace.”

 


US-Israeli settlers hope to see a second Trump term

US-Israeli settlers hope to see a second Trump term
Updated 02 November 2024
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US-Israeli settlers hope to see a second Trump term

US-Israeli settlers hope to see a second Trump term
  • Recent polls show that a majority of Israelis dream of the days when the former president inhabited the White House
  • Donald Trump prioritized Israel during his previous term, moving the American embassy to Jerusalem among his other actions

SHILOH, Palestinian Territories: Less than a week before the United States presidential election, Americans living in settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank know exactly who they want to win: Donald Trump.
Recent polls show that a majority of Israelis, 66 percent according to one conducted by Israel’s Channel 12 News, dream of the days when the former president inhabited the White House.
Trump prioritized Israel during his previous term, moving the American embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights and helping to normalize ties between Israel and several Arab states under the so-called Abraham Accords.
Now, many Israelis believe Trump will offer yet more support as the country battles Iran-backed militant groups in Gaza and Lebanon, as well as Iran itself.
“I’m proud to tell you that I voted for President Trump,” Eliana Passentin, 50, who moved to Israel from San Francisco as a child, said.
For Passentin, a mother and grandmother, the stakes are higher than for the average Israeli.
For the past 29 years she has lived in Eli, part of a cluster of Israeli settlements located in the heart of the West Bank.
The area has been occupied by Israel since 1967, but it could become Palestinian sovereign territory under a two-state solution favored by the international community.
Passentin is employed by the local regional council.
She recalls how successive administrations in Washington pressured Israel to stop expanding settlements in an attempt to mediate peace between Israelis and Palestinians and reach a two-state solution.
“United States of America, our greatest ally, we thank you, but please understand we know how to run our country,” Passentin said.
In her backyard, with sweeping views of the entire area, Passentin points to nearby Israeli and Palestinian towns.
“I don’t think that Israelis living here are an obstacle to peace. On the contrary, I think that the Israelis living here are building the region for everyone,” she said.
She said the region was a hub for Jews in Biblical times, and claims that under international agreements Israelis have a right to live here.
International law says otherwise, however, and Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are considered illegal by the international community.
Among Israelis who vote for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling right-wing coalition, 93 percent support Trump’s candidacy, according to the Channel 12 poll.
“Things have changed since October 7,” Passentin said, referring to Hamas’s attack on southern Israel on that day in 2023 which sparked the war in Gaza.
“Now it’s a whole different story — it’s not about Judea and Samaria, it’s about Israel,” she said, using the Biblical terms for the southern and northern West Bank.
“We have a right to defend ourselves... and I think President Trump respects and understands that.”
Gedaliah Blum, 45, a neighbor who was born in New Jersey, also said he voted for Trump based on the question of “what kind of future we want to have here in Israel.”
“Do we want a future that has an embargo threatened on Israel every time we defend ourselves?” he asked.
“Trump is not going to pressure Israel to sign a ceasefire that will let Hamas remain in power in Gaza. They’re not going to push Israel to sign a peace agreement with Lebanon that will allow Hezbollah to remain in power.”
With Kamala Harris in the Oval Office, Israel will be under constant “pressure,” Blum said.
“We’re going to get pressure, we’re going to get embargoes, we’re going to get Iranian money in their pockets. It’s not in the best interest of Israel.”
In the nearby settlement of Shiloh, where an estimated 20 percent of residents hold US citizenship, New York-born Yisrael Medad, 77, said he believed Trump would be good not only for America but also for “America’s friends abroad, including Israel.”
“I think the policies that a Republican candidate such as Trump are promoting are most beneficial for the administration, Congress and the American people,” he said.
On Israel, Medad said he believed that Trump would treat Israel more “fairly in terms of not denying its rights to defend itself... not only in a physical sense but also on the ideological front.”
Referring to a recent incident at a Democratic campaign rally in which Harris did not push back against a demonstrator who said Israel was committing a “genocide” in Gaza, Medad said: “That’s not the type of candidate I want in the White House.”


Israel’s path of destruction in southern Lebanon raises fears of an attempt to create a buffer zone

Israel’s path of destruction in southern Lebanon raises fears of an attempt to create a buffer zone
Updated 02 November 2024
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Israel’s path of destruction in southern Lebanon raises fears of an attempt to create a buffer zone

Israel’s path of destruction in southern Lebanon raises fears of an attempt to create a buffer zone
  • Israeli warplanes and ground forces have blasted a trail of destruction through southern Lebanon the past month
  • More than 1 million people have fled bombardment, emptying much of the south

BEIRUT: Perched on a hilltop a short walk from the Israeli border, the tiny southern Lebanese village of Ramyah has almost been wiped off the map. In a neighboring village, satellite photos show a similar scene: a hill once covered with houses, now reduced to a gray smear of rubble.
Israeli warplanes and ground forces have blasted a trail of destruction through southern Lebanon the past month. The aim, Israel says, is to debilitate the Hezbollah militant group, push it away from the border and end more than a year of Hezbollah fire into northern Israel.
Even United Nations peacekeepers and Lebanese troops in the south have come under fire from Israeli forces, raising questions over whether they can remain in place.
More than 1 million people have fled bombardment, emptying much of the south. Some experts say Israel may be aiming to create a depopulated buffer zone, a strategy it has already deployed along its border with Gaza.
Some conditions for such a zone appear already in place, according to an Associated Press analysis of satellite imagery and data collected by mapping experts that show the breadth of destruction across 11 villages next to the border.
The Israeli military has said the bombardment is necessary to destroy Hezbollah tunnels and other infrastructure it says the group embedded within towns. The blasts have also destroyed homes, neighborhoods and sometimes entire villages, where families have lived for generations.
Israel says it aims to push Hezbollah far enough back that its citizens can return safely to homes in the north, but Israeli officials acknowledge they don’t have a concrete plan for ensuring Hezbollah stays away from the border long term. That is a key focus in attempts by the United States to broker a ceasefire.
Orna Mizrahi, a senior researcher at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, said Israel’s immediate aim is not to create a buffer zone — but that might change.
“Maybe we’ll have no other choice than staying there until we have an arrangement that promises us that Hezbollah will not come back to the zone,” she said.
A path of destruction
Troops pushed into southern Lebanon on Oct. 1, backed by heavy bombardment that has intensified since.
Using satellite images provided by Planet Labs PBC, AP identified a line of 11 villages — all within 4 miles (6.5 kilometers) of Lebanon’s border with Israel — that have been severely damaged in the past month, either by strikes or detonations of explosives laid by Israeli soldiers.
Analysis found the most intense damage in the south came in villages closest to the border, with between 100 and 500 buildings likely destroyed or damaged in each, according to Corey Scher of CUNY Graduate Center and Jamon Van Der Hoek of Oregon State University, experts in damage assessments.
In Ramyah, barely a single structure still stands on the village’s central hilltop, after a controlled detonation that Israeli soldiers showed themselves carrying out in videos posted on social media. In the next town over, Aita Al-Shaab — a village with strong Hezbollah influence — bombardment turned the hilltop with the highest concentration of buildings into a gray wasteland of rubble.
In other villages, the damage is more selective. In some, bombardment tore scars through blocks of houses; in others, certain homes were crushed while their neighbors remained intact.
Another controlled detonation leveled much of the village of Odeissah, with an explosion so strong it set off earthquake alerts in Israel.
In videos of the blast, Lubnan Baalbaki, conductor of the Lebanese Philharmonic Orchestra, watched in disbelief as his parents’ house — containing the art collection and a library his father had built up for years — was destroyed.
“This house was a project and a dream for both of my parents,” he told the AP. His parents’ graves in the garden are now lost.
When asked whether its intention was to create a buffer zone, Israel’s military said it was “conducting localized, limited, targeted raids based on precise intelligence” against Hezbollah targets. It said Hezbollah had “deliberately embedded” weapons in homes and villages.
Israeli journalist Danny Kushmaro even helped blow up a home that the military said was being used to store Hezbollah ammunition. In a television segment, Kushmaro and soldiers counted down before they pressed a button, setting off a massive explosion.
Videos posted online by Israel’s military and individual soldiers show Israeli troops planting flags on Lebanese soil. Still, Israel has not built any bases or managed to hold a permanent presence in southern Lebanon. Troops appear to move back and forth across the border, sometimes under heavy fire from Hezbollah.
October has been the deadliest month of 2024 for the Israeli military, with around 60 soldiers killed.
Attacks on UN peacekeeping troops and the Lebanese Army
The bombardment has been punctuated by Israeli attacks on UN troops and the Lebanese Army — forces which, under international law, are supposed to keep the peace in the area. Israel has long complained that their presence has not prevented Hezbollah from building up its infrastructure across the south.
Israel denies targeting either force.
The Lebanese military has said at least 11 of its soldiers were killed in eight Israeli strikes, either at their positions or while assisting evacuations.
The peacekeeping force, known as UNIFIL, said its forces and infrastructure have been harmed at least 30 times since late September, blaming Israeli military fire or actions for about 20 of them, “with seven being clearly deliberate.”
A rocket likely fired by Hezbollah or an allied group hit UNIFIL’s headquarters in Naqoura on Tuesday, causing some minor injuries, said UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti.
UNIFIL has refused to leave southern Lebanon, despite calls by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for them to go.
Experts warn that could change if peacekeepers come under greater fire.
“If you went from the UN taking casualties to the UN actually taking fatalities,” some nations contributing troops may “say ‘enough is enough,’ and you might see the mission start to crumble,” said Richard Gowan of the International Crisis Group.
The future of the territory is uncertain
International ceasefire efforts appear to be centered on implementing UN Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.
It specified that Israeli forces would fully withdraw from Lebanon while the Lebanese army and UNIFIL — not Hezbollah — would be the exclusive armed presence in a zone about 25 kilometers (15 miles) from the border.
But the resolution was not fully implemented. Hezbollah never left the border zone, and Lebanon accuses Israel of continuing to occupy small areas of its land and carrying out frequent military overflights above its territory.
During a recent visit to Beirut, US envoy Amos Hochstein said a new agreement was needed to enforce Resolution 1701.
Israel could be trying to pressure an agreement into existence through the destruction wreaked in southern Lebanon.
Yossi Yehoshua, military correspondent for the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, wrote that the military needs to “entrench further its operational achievements” to push Hezbollah, the Lebanese government and mediating countries “to accept an end (of the war) under conditions that are convenient for Israel.”
Some Lebanese fear that means an occupation of parts of the south, 25 years after Israel ended its occupation there.
Lebanese parliamentarian Mark Daou, a critic of both Hezbollah and of Israel’s military operations in Lebanon, said he believed Israel was trying to degrade Hezbollah’s capabilities and turn the Lebanese public “against the will to resist Israeli incursions.”
Gowan, of the International Crisis Group, said one aim of Resolution 1701 was to give the Lebanese army enough credibility that it, not Hezbollah, would be seen “as the legitimate defender” in the south.
“That evaporates if they become (Israel’s) gendarmerie of southern Lebanon,” he said.