TEHRAN: The top commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards has warned Israel it would face “bitter consequences” after its attack on Iranian military sites, local media said on Monday.
Guards chief Hossein Salami, quoted by Tasnim news agency, said Israel had “failed to achieve its ominous goals” with its air raids on Saturday.
Israel struck military sites in response to Tehran’s October 1 missile attack, itself retaliation for the killing of Iran-backed militant leaders and a Revolutionary Guards commander.
Salami said the Israeli attack was a sign of “miscalculation and helplessness” as Israel battles Tehran-aligned militants in Gaza and Lebanon.
“Its bitter consequences will be unimaginable” for Israel, Salami warned according to Tasnim.
Iranian media have played down the severity of the Israeli operation, signalling what analysts say is the Islamic republic’s reluctance to escalate further.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday said that Israel’s attack which killed four soldiers “should neither be exaggerated nor minimized.”
He described it as a “miscalculation” on Israel’s part.
President Masoud Pezeshkian said: “We do not seek war but we will defend the rights of our nation and country.”
Iran “will give an appropriate response to the aggression of the Zionist regime,” Pezeshkian added.
Also on Sunday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reiterated Iran’s “right to respond,” also saying that Tehran had “received indications” hours before Israel’s attack.
US news website Axios on Saturday said Israel has “sent message to Iran” ahead of its attack and warned it “against a response.”
Iran Guards chief warns Israel of ‘bitter consequences’ after attack
https://arab.news/9jmek
Iran Guards chief warns Israel of ‘bitter consequences’ after attack
- Salami said the Israeli attack was a sign of “miscalculation and helplessness”
Iraq lodges UN complaint over Israel using its airspace to attack Iran
A statement from government spokesman Bassim Alawadi said the letter condemns “the Zionist entity’s blatant violation of Iraq’s airspace and sovereignty by using Iraqi airspace to carry out an attack on the Islamic Republic of Iran on October 26.”
Lebanon says five dead in Israeli strike on southern city of Tyre
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s health ministry said an Israeli strike on Monday in the center of the southern city of Tyre killed at least five people and wounded 10 others, adding the toll was provisional.
An “Israeli enemy strike this morning on a building” in the center of the coastal city “led to a provisional toll of five dead and 10 wounded,” a health ministry statement said, adding that “work is ongoing to remove the rubble.”
Egypt proposes initial two-day truce in Gaza with limited hostage-prisoner exchange
- El-Sisi says talks should resume within 10 days of implementing temporary ceasefire in efforts to reach permanent one
- Israel says war cannot end until Hamas has been wiped out as a military force and governing entity in Gaza
CAIRO: Egypt has proposed an initial two-day ceasefire in Gaza to exchange four Israeli hostages of Hamas for some Palestinian prisoners, Egypt’s president said on Sunday as Israeli military strikes killed 45 Palestinians across the enclave.
Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah El-Sisi made the announcement as efforts to defuse the devastating, more than year-long war resumed in Qatar with the directors of the CIA and Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency taking part.
Speaking alongside Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune during a press conference in Cairo, El-Sisi also said that talks should resume within 10 days of implementing the temporary ceasefire in efforts to reach a permanent one.
There was no immediate comment from Israel or Hamas but a Palestinian official close to the mediation effort told Reuters: “I expect Hamas would listen to the new offers, but it remains determined that any agreement must end the war and get Israeli forces out of Gaza.”
Israel has said the war cannot end until Hamas has been wiped out as a military force and governing entity in Gaza.
The US, Qatar and Egypt have been spearheading negotiations to end the war that erupted after Hamas fighters stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7 last year, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, by Israeli tallies.
The death toll from Israel’s retaliatory air and ground onslaught in Gaza is approaching 43,000, Gaza health officials say, with the densely populated enclave in ruins.
An official briefed on the talks told Reuters earlier on Sunday that negotiations in Doha will seek a short-term ceasefire and the release of some hostages being held by Hamas in exchange for Israel’s release of Palestinian prisoners.
The objective, still elusive after multiple mediation attempts, is to get Israel and Hamas to agree to a halt in fighting for less than a month in the hope this would lead to a more permanent ceasefire.
At least 43 of those killed in Gaza on Sunday were in the north of the enclave, where Israeli troops have returned to root out Hamas fighters who it says have regrouped there.
Jabalia in focus
Earlier on Sunday, 20 people were killed following an airstrike on houses in Jabalia, the largest of the Gaza Strip’s eight historic refugee camps, which has been the focus of an Israeli military offensive for more than three weeks, medics and the Palestinian official news agency WAFA said.
Another Israeli airstrike on a school sheltering displaced Palestinian families in Shati camp in Gaza City, killed nine people and wounded 20 others, with many in critical condition, medics said.
Footage circulated on Palestinian media, which Reuters could not immediately verify, showed people rushing to the bomb site to help evacuate the casualties. Bodies were scattered on the ground, while some carried wounded children in their arms before loading them in a vehicle.
The Israeli military said it was looking into the report on the strike on the school.
Three local journalists were among those killed at the school in Shati — Saed Radwan, head of digital media at Hamas Al-Aqsa television, Hanin Baroud, and Hamza Abu Selmeya, according to Hamas media.
On Sunday, Israel’s military said it had killed more than 40 militants in the Jabalia area in the past 24 hours, as well as dismantling infrastructure and locating large quantities of military equipment.
Israeli military strikes on the towns of Jabalia, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza have so far killed around 800 people during a three-week offensive, the Gaza health ministry said.
Iran’s imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate hospitalized with severe health issues
- Mohammadi is the 19th woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize and the second Iranian woman after human rights activist Shirin Ebadi in 2003
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates: Iranian authorities have allowed imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi to be hospitalized after almost nine weeks of feeling sick, a group campaigning for the activist said Sunday.
The Free Narges Coalition said in a statement that Mohammadi must be granted a medical furlough to receive comprehensive treatment for multiple conditions. It said that just transferring her to the hospital will not address the severe health issues caused by months of neglect and deprivation.
Mohammadi is being held at Iran’s notorious Evin Prison, which houses political prisoners and those with Western ties. She already had been serving a 30-month sentence, to which 15 more months were added in January.
On Saturday, Iranian authorities issued an additional six-month sentence against her after she protested the execution of another political prisoner in the women’s ward of Evin Prison on Aug. 6.
Mohammadi suffers from heart disease, and according to her medical report issued in September, the main artery of her heart has again developed a serious complication.
The coalition said that they continue to demand the unconditional release of Mohammadi and her full access to medical care.
Mohammadi is the 19th woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize and the second Iranian woman after human rights activist Shirin Ebadi in 2003.
Mohammadi, 52, has kept up her activism despite numerous arrests by Iranian authorities and years behind bars.
Lebanon says at least 21 killed in Israeli strikes Sunday in south
- Israel’s deadly drone attack at Burj Al-Shemali struck near a school run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees
- At least 1,620 people have been killed in the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict in Lebanon since September 23
BEIRUT: The Lebanese health ministry said that Israeli strikes on Sunday killed at least 21 people across southern Lebanon.
Nine people were killed and 38 wounded in a strike on Haret Saida, near the port city of Sidon, the ministry said. At least seven others including a nurse and three rescuers were killed in the southern village of Ain Baal and five in Burj Al-Shemali.
A strike on Haret Saida, about 60 kilometers (37 miles) from the Israeli border, completely destroyed the top floor of a three-story building, according to an AFP correspondent.
Nearby buildings were also damaged. The Lebanese army blocked access to the sector, which has become crowded with people fleeing other areas of south Lebanon since Israel launched its offensive against Hezbollah in September.
AFP’s correspondent said that no warning to evacuate the zone was given before Israel’s strike.
In Ain Baal, the dead included three emergency workers working at a center run by the Al-Riossala Association, a charity linked to the Shiite political party Amal, which is an ally of Hezbollah.
A nurse and three other people who happened to be nearby were also killed, the health ministry said.
Israel’s deadly drone attack at Burj Al-Shemali struck near a school run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, according to the municipal chief, quoted by the ANI news agency.
An UNRWA spokesperson said the school was not directly hit in the strike and suffered no casualties.
At least 1,620 people have been killed in the conflict since September 23, according to an AFP tally of health ministry figures.
