Istanbul: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday accused Western powers of backing what he said were Israeli plans to attack Lebanon and “spread war” throughout the region.
“Israel is now setting its sights on Lebanon and we see that Western powers behind the scenes are patting Israel on the back and even supporting them,” he told lawmakers from his ruling AKP party.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Netanyahu’s plans to spread the war to the region will lead to a great disaster,” he said.
His remarks came as concern soared over the escalating cross-border exchanges of fire between Israeli forces and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah, fueling fears it could descend into fully-fledged war.
The Lebanon border violence erupted after Hamas militants staged an unprecedented attack on southern Israel, triggering a massive Israeli retaliatory operation which is ongoing.
Netanyahu has said Israeli forces are now winding up the most intense part of the Gaza war and will redeploy to the northern border, casting the move as defensive.
Last week, Israel said its plans for an offensive in Lebanon were “approved and validated.”
Erdogan accuses West of backing Israeli ‘plans to spread war’
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Erdogan accuses West of backing Israeli ‘plans to spread war’
- Remarks came as concern soared over the escalating cross-border exchanges of fire between Israeli forces and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah
US orders some Beirut embassy staff members to leave Lebanon
- The advisory covered eligible family members as well as non-essential employees
- “The US embassy strongly encourages US citizens in Southern Lebanon, near the borders with Syria, and or in refugee settlements to depart those areas immediately,” it said
WASHINGTON: The US Department of State on Saturday ordered some employees at its embassy in Beirut and their eligible family members to the leave Lebanon amid escalating tensions in the Middle East following the killing of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah by Israel.
“US Embassy Beirut personnel are restricted from personal travel without advance permission,” the State Department said in a statement. “Additional travel restrictions may be imposed on US personnel under Chief of Mission security responsibility, with little to no notice due to increased security issues or threats.”
The advisory covered eligible family members as well as non-essential employees.
The State Department also urged Americans in the country to leave, warning the currently limited options to depart might become unavailable if the security situation worsened.
“The US embassy strongly encourages US citizens in Southern Lebanon, near the borders with Syria, and or in refugee settlements to depart those areas immediately,” it said.
Iran’s supreme leader taken to secure location, sources say
- Khamenei issued a statement later on Saturday, following Israel’s announcement that Nasrallah had been killed, saying: “The fate of this region will be determined by the forces of resistance, with Hezbollah at the forefront”
DUBAI: Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been taken to a secure location inside Iran amid heightened security, sources told Reuters, a day after Israel killed the head of Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah in a strike on Beirut. The move to safeguard Iran’s top decision-maker is the latest show of nervousness by the Iranian authorities as Israel launched a series of devastating attacks on Hezbollah, Iran’s best armed and most well-equipped ally in the region.
Reuters reported this month that Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards Corps, the ideological guardians of the Islamic Republic, had ordered all of members to stop using any type of communication devices after thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah blew up.
Lebanon and Hezbollah say Israel was behind the pager and walkie-talkie attacks. Israel neither denied nor confirmed involvement.
The two regional officials briefed by Tehran and who told Reuters that Khamenei had been moved to a safe location also said Iran was in contact with Hezbollah and other regional proxy groups to determine the next step after Nasrallah’s killing.
The sources declined to be identified further due to the sensitivity of the matter. As well as killing Nasrallah, Friday’s strikes by Israel on Beirut killed Revolutionary Guards’ deputy commander Abbas Nilforoushan, Iranian media reported on Saturday. Other Revolutionary Guard’s commanders have also been killed since the Gaza War erupted last year and violence flared elsewhere.
Khamenei issued a statement later on Saturday, following Israel’s announcement that Nasrallah had been killed, saying: “The fate of this region will be determined by the forces of resistance, with Hezbollah at the forefront.”
“The blood of the martyr shall not go unavenged,” he said in a separate statement, in which he announced five days of mourning to mark Nasrallah’s death.
Nasrallah’s death is a major blow to Iran, removing an influential ally who helped build Hezbollah into the linchpin of Tehran’s constellation of allied groups in the Arab world. Iran’s network of regional allies, known as the ‘Axis of Resistance’, stretch from Hezbollah in Lebanon to Hamas in Gaza, Iran-backed militias in Iraq and the Houthis in Yemen. Hamas has been fighting a war with Israel for almost a year, since its fighters stormed into Israel on Oct. 7. The Houthis, meanwhile, have launched missiles at Israel and at ships sailing in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea along the Yemeni coast.
Hezbollah has been engaged in exchanges of fire across the Lebanese border throughout the Gaza War and has repeatedly said it would not stop until there was a ceasefire in Gaza.
After the pager and walkie-talkies strikes, one Iranian security official told Reuters that a large-scale operation was underway by the Revolutionary Guards to inspect all communications devices. He said most of these devices were either homemade or imported from China and Russia.
The official said Iran was concerned about infiltration by Israeli agents, including Iranians on Israel’s payroll and a thorough investigation of personnel has already begun, targeting mid and high-ranking members of the Revolutionary Guards.
In another statement on Saturday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said the United States had played a role in Nasrallah’s killing as a supplier of weapons to Israel.
“The Americans cannot deny their complicity with the Zionists,” he said in the statement carried by state media.
Turkiye says Hezbollah’s Nasrallah will be hard to replace
- Hakan Fidan said the “helplesness” of the United States and other Western countries was allowing the violence to continue
ANKARA: Turkiye’s foreign minister said on Saturday that Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was an important figure for Lebanon and the region and would be hard to replace after he was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut a day earlier.
Speaking to state broadcaster TRT Haber in New York, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan also said Turkiye believed Israel would not stop in Lebanon and would spread the war in Gaza to the wider region.
He said the “helplesness” of the United States and other Western countries was allowing the violence to continue.
Iraq PM says Israel crossed ‘all red lines’ with Nasrallah killing
- Zionist entity has crossed all the red lines,” Sudani said in a statement
BAGHDAD: Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani condemned on Saturday the Israeli killing of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah as a “crime.”
The Friday attack on Hezbollah’s south Beirut stronghold that killed the Iran-backed group’s leader was a “shameful attack” and “a crime that shows the Zionist entity has crossed all the red lines,” Sudani said in a statement, calling Nasrallah “a martyr on the path of the righteous.”
Syria condemns ‘despicable’ Israeli killing of Nasrallah
- The government announced three days of official mourning, SANA reported
DAMASCUS: Syria on Saturday condemned Israel’s killing of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, one of Damascus’s key supporters in years of civil war, and declared public mourning.
A foreign ministry statement carried by state news agency SANA said that the late Friday air strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs that killed Nasrallah was a “despicable aggression.”
“The Zionist entity (Israel) confirms through this despicable aggression, once again... its barbarism and wanton disregard for all international standards and laws,” it said.
“The Syrian people... have never for a day forgotten (Nasrallah’s) positions of support,” the statement added.
The government announced three days of official mourning, SANA reported.
Hezbollah since 2013 has openly backed the forces of President Bashar Assad in his country’s civil war, which broke out after the repression of anti-government protests.
Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in the country since the war began in 2011, mainly targeting army positions and Iran-backed fighters, including from Hezbollah.
Along with Russia, Hezbollah backer Iran has helped Assad regain territory lost earlier in the civil war.
While Damascus condemned Nasrallah’s killing, in areas outside government control, some were celebrating, including in the Idlib jihadist-run rebel bastion.
Many Syrian opposition supporters and activists consider Hezbollah responsible for their woes, after the group fought Syrian rebels in a number of areas, leading to heavy losses among opposition factions and forcing tens of thousands of residents to flee.
