Iran’s supreme leader vowed retaliation for last weekend’s attacks by Israel as an Israeli military officer confirmed that a naval commando unit seized a suspected Hezbollah operative in a raid in Lebanon.
Days before the presidential election in the United States – Israel’s main military supplier – Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Iran’s response would cover attacks against both the Islamic republic and its allies.
“The enemies, both the United States and the Zionist regime, should know that they will definitely receive a crushing response,” Khamenei said, referring to groups aligned with Iran, including those in Yemen and Syria.
in response to the launch of around 200 missiles on October 1, which Tehran called a retaliation.
Israel warned Iran against responding to the October 26 attack.
Analysts say Israel has inflicted severe damage on Iran’s air defenses and missile capabilities and could yet launch a full-scale action against the Islamic republic.
Israeli naval forces detain ‘senior Hezbollah operative’
Israel has been engaged in a full-scale war against Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon since late September, as fighting continues against the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which sparked the Gaza war by attacking Israel on October 7 last year.
Ahead of Tuesday’s U.S. election, administration officials have been pushing for a resolution to the war in Lebanon.
Israeli naval commandos seized a trainee sailor, a military officer described as a “senior operative” of Hezbollah, in a raid in Lebanon and brought him to Israel for questioning.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati has instructed the Foreign Ministry to submit a complaint to the UN Security Council over Friday’s raid in the coastal town of Batroun, his office said.
The Lebanese army and U.N. peacekeeping force UNIFIL are both investigating the raid, Mikati’s office said, adding that it called for “swift” results.
First reported by Lebanese sources before an Israeli military official confirmed the military’s involvement, the raid was the first of its kind since war broke out between Israel and Hezbollah in September.
“A senior Hezbollah official, who acts as an expert in his field, has been arrested,” the Israeli military officer said. “The officer has been transferred to Israeli territory and is currently under investigation.”
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said an “unidentified military force” carried out a “sea landing” on the coast of Batroun, south of Tripoli, at dawn on Friday.
An acquaintance of the abductee identified him as a student at the State Institute of Maritime Science and Technology (MARSATI) in Batroun, Lebanon’s main training school for the maritime industry.
Gaza vaccination center hit
Since October 6, Israeli forces have carried out a massive air and ground attack in northern Gaza, concentrated in the Jabalia area, promising to prevent Hamas from regrouping.
Two rockets were fired at Israel from the area on Saturday, the military said, the first such attack in weeks.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said four children were among six people injured in a strike against a polio vaccination center in northern Gaza.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the agency had received “an extremely worrying report” that the Sheikh Radwan health center “was hit today while parents were taking their children to the polio vaccination campaign life saver.”
Tedros did not specify who carried out the attack, but a source from Gaza’s civil protection agency told AFP that it was “an Israeli quadcopter that fired two missiles that hit the wall of the Sheikh Radwan clinic “.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment.
The Israeli military said dozens of militants were killed around Jabalia “in air and ground activities.”
Doctors and Gaza’s civil defense agency said three people were killed in an attack in Nuseirat, central Gaza.
“We came out and there were planes and gunfire above us,” Ashraf Abdullah said, describing the victims as “all blown to pieces.”
The attack on central Israel wounds 19 people
After nearly a year of exchanges across Israel’s northern border, Israel stepped up its bombing campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon on September 23 and subsequently sent in ground troops.
Since then Hezbollah has fired more deeply at Israel.
A strike in the coastal plain north of Tel Aviv injured 19 people, four of them moderately, police said Saturday.
Hezbollah said it had again fired rockets at the Israeli Glilot intelligence base near Tel Aviv, and also claimed responsibility for firing rockets at “military industries” in the Haifa area.
Since the war escalated, Israeli attacks have killed at least 1,930 people in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally based on Health Ministry data.
The Israeli army says 38 soldiers have been killed in Lebanon since ground operations began on September 30.
Israeli strikes on Hezbollah’s southern Beirut stronghold on Saturday killed one person and wounded 15, the Health Ministry said.
The war has displaced hundreds of thousands of people in Lebanon.
“There is no heating. We have no warm clothes,” said Fatima, 17, who is now camping with her family at a school near Deir al-Ahmar in eastern Baalbek, Lebanon.
Since Israel launched its offensive against Gaza in October last year, more than 43,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to local health authorities.
The October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas-led militants last year killed 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages. Around 100 hostages remain in Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Around 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced from their homes, often multiple times.
