A photo provided by the office of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Nov. 2, 2024, shows him waving to the crowd at a meeting with Iranian students in Tehran. (Credit: KHAMENEI.IR/AFP)
Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, vowed on Saturday to respond “scathingly” to any attack by Israel and the United States, on the day that pro-Iranian groups in Iraq fired drones into Israeli territory, which were intercepted.
At the same time, the Israeli army is continuing its wars against the Palestinian Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon, two movements allied with Iran, which in recent months has been engaged in a cycle of attacks and retaliation with Israel, raising fears of a conflagration in the Middle East.
With the U.S. presidential election just days away on Nov. 5, and despite international pressure, attempts to bring the hostilities to an end have been in vain. Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas and launched a devastating offensive in Gaza after the Palestinian Islamist movement launched an unprecedented attack on its territory on Oct. 7, 2023. It also wants to neutralize Hezbollah on its northern border, after the party opened a front against it in support of Hamas.
Against this backdrop, the United States announced on Friday new deployments in the Middle East, including ballistic missile defenses, fighter jets and B-52 bombers, which will arrive “in the coming months” for the “defense of Israel” and as a warning to Iran. “The enemies, both the United States and the Zionist regime, must know that they will certainly receive a scathing response to their actions against Iran and the resistance front,” warned Ali Khamenei in Tehran.
Drones launched from Iraq against Israel
In addition to Hamas and Hezbollah, Iran supports the Houthi rebels in Yemen and armed groups in Iraq, which form part of what Tehran calls the “Axis of Resistance” to Israel, which has occupied Palestinian territories since 1967. On Saturday, the “Islamic Resistance in Iraq,” a coalition of pro-Iranian armed groups, claimed responsibility for drone attacks on Eilat, Israel's southern city on the Red Sea.
The Israeli army said it had intercepted three drones over the Red Sea approaching from the east. On Oct. 26, Israel targeted military sites in Iran in retaliation for Iranian missile strikes against Israeli territory on Oct. 1. “The response to the enemy's aggression [of Oct. 26] will be given firmly, thoughtfully and powerfully, and will surpass the enemy's understanding,” threatened the spokesperson for the Revolutionary Guards, Iran's ideological army, Ali Mohammad Naini.
Children and women 'torn to pieces'
In the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army shelled Jabalia and Beit Lahia (north), and Nousseirat (center), where three Palestinians died, according to civil defense. “At one o'clock in the morning, there was an explosion and the screaming started. We went outside and there were planes and gunfire overhead,” Achraf Abdallah, a resident of Nousseirat, told AFPTV, saying he saw children and women "torn to pieces."
The army, which has been concentrating its offensive since Oct. 6 in the north of the territory where it believes Hamas is regrouping its forces, claimed to have “eliminated dozens of terrorists in Jabalia.” It also reported operations in the south and center of the besieged and devastated territory. It also reported having located an underground tunnel containing a Hamas weapons production facility in Gaza City (north), in which they found, among other things, “diving equipment” designed to “infiltrate Israeli territory by sea.”
Israel has been bombarding this poor, cramped territory without interruption, where the vast majority of the 2.4 million inhabitants have been displaced and live in conditions described as “disastrous” by the U.N. Its air and ground offensive has claimed 43,314 lives, most of them civilians, according to data from the Gaza's health ministry, and caused colossal destruction and a humanitarian disaster.
The Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023 resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data, including hostages killed or who died in captivity. Of the 251 people kidnapped, 97 remain hostages in Gaza, 34 of whom have been declared dead by the army.
The Israeli army carried out new strikes in southern Lebanon, where its forces have been engaged in a ground offensive since Sept. 30, and on the southern suburbs of Beirut, in the “Semaan Gallery” district. One person was killed and 15 wounded in the strike, according to a provisional toll from the Health Ministry.
After a year of cross-border exchanges of fire, Israel intensified its strikes across Lebanon from Sept. 23, saying it wanted to neutralize Hezbollah in the border regions and prevent rocket fire to allow the return of 60,000 displaced persons to the north of the country. At least 1,900 people have been killed since Sept. 23 in Lebanon, according to an AFP count based on official data.
