Israel’s military widened its attacks on Iran-backed militant groups, striking the Yemeni port city of Hodeida that is held by Tehran-allied Huthi rebels, even as it intensified air strikes on Hezbollah strongholds in southern Beirut and elsewhere in Lebanon, raising fears among global leaders of an all-out Middle East war.
“In a large-scale air operation today, dozens of air-force aircraft, including fighter jets, refueling planes, and reconnaissance aircraft, attacked military-use targets of the Huthi terrorist regime in the Ras Issa and Hodeida areas of Yemen,” military spokesman Captain David Avraham told AFP on September 29.
The military said the air strikes targeted a Huthi-operated power plant and seaport used to import oil and to allegedly receive Iranian weapons. Israel has previously attacked the port, most recently in July.
Yemen has endured a civil war since 2014, when Huthi rebels seized the capital, Sanaa, prompting Saudi-led forces to intervene in support of the internationally recognized government and leading to a massive humanitarian disaster in the country of some 40 million people on the southern Arabian Peninsula.
The vast majority of humanitarian aid arrives through Hodeida’s deep-water port, although much of that has been disrupted since the Huthis seized the facility.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on September 29 that Israel would strike at foes no matter the distance.
Yemen’s Huthi rebels, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas in Gaza are considered to be Iranian proxies in the region. The Huthi rebels have been targeting ships in the Persian Gulf and launching missiles toward Israel over the past year, claiming it is in support of Hamas fighters in Gaza.
Hezbollah and Hamas have been designated as terrorist organizations by the United States. The European Union also designates Hamas as a terrorist organization, as it does Hezbollah’s armed wing but not its political party.
Israel’s continued aerial attacks on Lebanon and now in Yemen come amid mounting calls from the United Nations and major powers – including close ally Washington — for an easing of hostilities.
France announced that Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot had arrived in Beirut late on September 29 after Barrot spoke by phone with caretaker Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati. Paris also called for “an immediate halt to Israeli strikes in Lebanon.”
Mikati said in a televised speech earlier in the day that Lebanon had “no option but the diplomatic option.”
U.S. President Joe Biden on September 29 told reporters that he would soon being speaking to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, although he didn’t give a date.
Asked if an all-out war in the Middle East could still be prevented, he said: “It has to be. We really have to avoid it.”
U.S. national-security spokesman John Kirby earlier warned that all-out war would not help Israel safely return people to their homes in the north of the country near the Lebanese border, where many thousands have been evacuated.
“An all-out war with Hezbollah, certainly with Iran, is not the way to do that. If you want to get those folks back home safely and sustainably, we believe that a diplomatic path is the right course,” Kirby told CNN.
Kirby also said Washington was talking to Israeli leaders about what the best next measures in Lebanon might be and reiterated that U.S. support for Israel’s security was “iron-clad.”
But he added that “we have made no bones about the fact that we don’t necessarily see the tactical execution the same way that they do in terms of protection [of civilians].”
Iran has vowed a response for the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in a massive Israeli air strike in Beirut on September 27 and has signaled continuing support for groups confronting Israel, but it is also seeking an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council.
Israel’s defense forces said on September 29 that they had conducted a “precise strike” on Hezbollah’s southern Beirut stronghold.
Mikati has warned that the fighting could be displacing as many as 1 million Lebanese civilians.
Hezbollah confirmed that Israel’s attacks killed the seventh of its leaders to die since mid-September, when Nabil Kaouk died on September 28.
Hezbollah also confirmed Israel’s earlier assertion that another of its senior commanders, southern forces commander Ali Karaki, had died in the strike that killed Nasrallah.
WATCH: Police in Pakistan’s biggest city, Karachi, fired tear gas and warning shots after protesters rallying against the death of Hassan Nasrallah threw stones and tried to cross barriers blocking access to the U.S. Consulate.
In response to the Israeli assault on Lebanon, Hezbollah has intensified its strikes on Israel, firing several hundred missiles a day, causing some injuries and property damage, although most have been intercepted by Israeli defense systems.
Netanyahu described the assassination of Nasrallah as a necessary move toward “changing the balance of power in the region for years to come.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi was quoted by the official Fars news agency as saying in New York that “Everyone should be aware that the situation is extremely explosive, and that everything is possible…even war.” He said that “this horrible crime…will not go unanswered.”
But with analysts expressing doubt about Tehran’s willingness to risk a direct conflict with Israel or its ally the United States, he also signaled a diplomatic push. “The diplomatic apparatus will also use all its political, diplomatic, legal, and international capacities to pursue the criminals and their supporters,” Araqchi said.
UN Security Council permanent members the United States and China urged de-escalation, while Russia warned of “fraught” and “dramatic” consequences for the region.
In his first statement since Israeli forces and Hezbollah confirmed the death of Nasrallah in massive air strikes in Beirut, Netanyahu said “Nasrallah was not a terrorist, he was the terrorist.”
AFP and Reuters, both citing sources, reported on September 29 that Nasrallah’s body had been recovered in Lebanon but that no date had been set for a funeral.
The Lebanese escalation comes as Israel’s war in Gaza nears the one-year mark since U.S.- and EU-designated terrorist group Hamas launched a cross-border attack that killed more than 1,200 people in Israel on October 7, many of them civilians.
There are fears of a rapidly expanding conflict that could include an Israeli ground offensive in Lebanon and eventually draw Iran and the United States directly into the fighting.
Israeli officials have said that a ground invasion of Lebanon is among their potential options.
Iranian media reported that Israel’s September 27 attacks in Beirut had also killed a senior commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
On September 28, Iran’s mission to the United Nations reportedly called in a letter for an emergency meeting of the 15-member Security Council.
Iranian Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani is said to have accused Israel of committing “a flagrant act of terrorist aggression against residential areas in Beirut, using U.S.-supplied thousand-pound bunker busters.”
On September 29, official media quoted the speaker of Iran’s parliament, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, as pledging ongoing Iranian support for groups that “resist” Israel.
“We will not hesitate to go to any level in order to help the resistance,” Qalibaf said, adding an accusation that the United States was “complicit” and “has to accept the repercussions.”
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “gravely concerned” by the “dramatic escalation” in Lebanon. “This cycle of violence must stop now, and all sides must step back from the brink,” Guterres said in a statement. “The people of Lebanon, the people of Israel, as well as the wider region, cannot afford an all-out war.”
Security Council member Russia has condemned the killing of Nasrallah as “yet another political assassination” that is “fraught with even greater dramatic consequences for Lebanon and the entire Middle East.”
On September 29, China’s Foreign Ministry urged all parties, but especially Israel, to act to de-escalate the situation.
Pope Francis appealed to all parties involved in the ongoing violence “to cease fire immediately in Lebanon, in Gaza, in the rest of Palestine, and in Israel.”
With reporting by Reuters and dpa
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