Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israeli airstrikes caused “severe damage” to Iran’s defense and missile production, but Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the damage caused by Saturday’s attack should not be exaggerated. Needed
With wars raging in Gaza and Lebanon, a direct confrontation between Israel and Iran risks turning into a regional conflict. But a day after the air strikes, there was no sign they would trigger another round of tensions.
However, heavy fighting between Israeli forces and Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, which has rapidly intensified in recent weeks, continued on Sunday with an Israeli air strike killing eight people in a residential block in Sidon. The doctors said.
“The air force struck all over Iran. We struck hard at Iran’s defense capabilities and its ability to produce missiles targeted at us,” Netanyahu said in a speech. He described the attack as “precise and powerful” and said it met all of its objectives.
The Islamic Republic has not indicated how it would respond to Saturday’s long-awaited attacks, which included bombings by multiple warplanes near the capital Tehran and in the western provinces of Ilam and Khuzestan.
The heavily armed arch-foes have been engaged in a cycle of retaliatory strikes against each other for months, with Saturday’s strike following an Iranian missile attack on October 1, most of which was shot down by Israel’s own air defence.
Khamenei said Israel’s calculations “must be disrupted”. The attack on Iran, which killed four soldiers and caused some damage, should “neither be underestimated nor exaggerated”, he said.
Speaker of the Iranian Parliament Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said Iran is entitled to self-defense and its response “will be determined in compliance with the requirements”.
US President Joe Biden called for a deescalation of tensions, raising fears of a wider Middle East war over the years-long Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza and Israel’s pressure in southern Lebanon to end Hezbollah’s attacks on northern Israel.
Separately, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant said Iran is no longer able to use its allies Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon against Israel. The two groups “are no longer effective tools of Tehran”, he said in a speech.
Gallant said Hamas no longer operates as a military network in Gaza and that Hezbollah’s senior command and most of its missile capabilities have been eliminated.
Hamas has repeatedly said it is still capable of acting militarily, and Israel has recently launched major new operations against regrouping Hamas militants in devastated northern Gaza.
Hezbollah has said its command structure remains intact and it retains significant missile capabilities.
lebanon battle
On Sunday, the Israeli military urged residents of 14 villages in southern Lebanon to immediately evacuate and move north of the Awali River.
At least eight people were killed and 25 wounded in an Israeli attack on Sidon, a city in coastal south Lebanon, on Sunday, the country’s health ministry said.
Elsewhere in the south, an attack on Zawtar al-Sharqiya killed three people and a bombing in Marjayoun on Saturday killed five, it said.
Israel said four of its soldiers were killed in fighting in south Lebanon.
Hezbollah also said it had fired a major missile strike at the Zevulon military industries facility north of Haifa in northern Israel. Hezbollah rockets hit a house and cars and rescue teams responded to extinguish the fire.
According to Israel’s ambulance service, a woman was seriously injured.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)