Israel announced on Saturday that its forces were on alert ahead of the anniversary of the Hamas attack on October 7, for fear of attacks, after saying it was preparing a response to the Hamas missile attack. Iran.
On the front with Hezbollah in Lebanon, Israeli Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi affirmed his determination to strike “without respite” the pro-Iranian movement, 440 fighters of which have been killed since Monday according to Israel.
“This week we will commemorate the anniversary of the war and October 7. We are ready to increase our forces in anticipation of this day,” for fear of attacks, said army spokesperson Daniel Hagari , without further clarification.
In a message to mark the first anniversary Monday of the unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on Israeli soil, which sparked the war in the Gaza Strip, Israeli President Isaac Herzog said the injuries were not were “not yet completely healed.”
He also denounced “the ongoing threat posed to the State (of Israel) by Iran and its terrorist proxies, who are blinded by hatred and determined to destroy our one and only Jewish nation-state.”
Sworn enemy of Israel and ally of Hamas and Hezbollah, Iran presented its missile attack Tuesday against Israeli territory as a response to the assassination of the leaders of Lebanese Hezbollah and Palestinian Hamas.
Israel is “preparing a response”, an Israeli military official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
“For every action, there will be a proportional and similar reaction from Iran, and even stronger,” warned the head of Iranian diplomacy Abbas Araghchi.
– Contact with Safieddine lost –
According to Tehran, the approximately 200 missiles fired towards Israel constitute a “legitimate” response to the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, killed on September 27 in an Israeli raid on the southern suburbs of Beirut, and to that of Ismaïl Haniyeh on July 31, the leader of Hamas, killed in an explosion in Tehran blamed on Israel.
US President Joe Biden has advised Israel against attacking Iranian oil sites. His predecessor and Republican candidate to succeed him, Donald Trump, suggested strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
After weakening Hamas during a devastating retaliatory offensive still underway in the besieged Palestinian territory, Israel shifted most of its operations in mid-September to the Lebanese front, opened by Hezbollah in support of Hamas on October 8. 2023.
Its army launched a campaign of violent and deadly aerial bombardments on Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon, and a ground offensive in southern Lebanon on Monday.
On Friday, it violently shelled the southern suburbs, targeting, according to the Israeli news site Ynet, Hachem Safieddine, potential successor to Nasrallah, who was considered the most powerful man in the country. The army has not confirmed this information.
But a Hezbollah official said contact with Hachem Safieddine had been “lost” since Friday’s strikes. A source close to the movement affirmed that the latter is “trying to reach the headquarters which was targeted underground”.
– 440 Hezbollah fighters killed according to Israel –
The Israeli army claimed to have “eliminated around 440 terrorists including 30 commanders of different ranks”, speaking of its land and air operations against Hezbollah since Monday.
“We must continue to put pressure on Hezbollah and inflict additional damage on the enemy, without concessions and without respite for the organization,” General Halevi said.
In mid-September, Benjamin Netanyahu’s government included the return home of tens of thousands of displaced people from northern Israel, bordering southern Lebanon, among the war objectives it is pursuing.
Israel wants to put an end to the threat that Hezbollah poses to its northern border with its rocket fire and to keep its fighters away from the border regions of southern Lebanon.
The army, which claims to be carrying out “limited” and “targeted” raids there, said it had located weapons warehouses and underground tunnels.
The Lebanese movement reported clashes with Israeli soldiers and announced the firing of rockets at an air base and a military industrial company in northern Israel.
– Deadly strikes in Gaza –
Since October 2023, more than 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon, including more than a thousand since the intensification of Israeli strikes on Hezbollah strongholds on September 23, according to the authorities. On Friday, 25 people died in Israeli raids according to the Health Ministry. Around 1.2 million people have been displaced.
In the Gaza Strip, hungry and ravaged by 12 months of war and where the vast majority of some 2.4 million inhabitants have been displaced, 12 people, including children, have died by Israeli strikes, according to rescuers .
Since the start of the war, 41,825 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the latest report from the Hamas government’s Ministry of Health.
On Monday, Mr. Netanyahu is due to deliver a speech to the nation to commemorate the Hamas attack, which resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data. Of the 251 people kidnapped during the attack, 97 are still hostages in Gaza, including 33 declared dead by the army.
