“Israel will face a jaw-dropping response”

“The enemies, both the US and the Zionist regime, should know that they will surely receive a crushing response.”

— Ali Khamenei, supreme leader of Iran

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said yesterday that the United States and Israel will “undoubtedly receive a crushing response” for what they are doing against his country, state media reported.

“The enemies, including America and the Zionist regime, should know that they will undoubtedly receive a crushing response for what they are doing against Iran and the resistance front,” Khamenei said.

He made the comments to students ahead of the anniversary of the 1979 seizure of the US embassy in Tehran by student hardliners shortly after the Islamic revolution that ousted the US-backed shah.

Yesterday, a pro-Iran coalition in Iraq claimed a drone strike in the Israeli resort of Eilat. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq is among the pro-Iran groups drawn into more than a year of war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Days before presidential elections in Israel’s main military supplier, the United States, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned that Iran’s response would cover attacks on both the Islamic republic and its allies.

Israel’s military said it had intercepted three drones over the Red Sea, after it reported on Friday evening that seven drones had been launched from “multiple fronts”. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed responsibility for four drone strikes on Eilat.

Since late September, Israel has been engaged in a full-scale war against Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, while fighting continues against the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which started the Gaza war by attacking Israel on October 7. last.

Yesterday, Israel again carried out deadly airstrikes in northern Gaza, where the UN calls conditions “apocalyptic”, and Hezbollah stepped up rocket fire near the Israeli commercial center of Tel Aviv.

“The enemies, both the US and the Zionist regime, should know that they will certainly receive a heartbreaking response,” Khamenei said, referring to Iran-aligned groups, including those in Yemen and Syria.

On October 26, Israel bombed military sites in Iran, killing four soldiers, in response to a barrage of about 200 rockets on October 1 that Tehran called retaliation. Israel warned Iran not to respond to the October 26 attack.

B-52 BOMBERS

Analysts say Israel has inflicted serious damage on Iran’s air defenses and missile capabilities and may yet launch larger-scale actions against the Islamic republic.

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels, who have repeatedly attacked commercial shipping in the Red Sea, are turning into a “powerful military organization” thanks to “unprecedented” military support from outside sources, notably Iran and Hezbollah, it said. -a recently published UN report. .

Ahead of Tuesday’s US election, US officials have pressed for a resolution to the war in Lebanon.

On Friday, the Pentagon announced the deployment of ballistic missile defense destroyers, long-range B-52 bombers and other assets to the Middle East as a warning to Iran.

The capabilities will begin arriving “in the coming months,” a Pentagon spokesman said.

US naval forces and B-2 heavy bombers have struck Houthi rebel targets in Yemen in response to attacks by the rebels, who say they are acting in support of the Palestinians.

Since October 6, Israeli forces have carried out a major air and ground assault in northern Gaza, centered on the Jabalia area, vowing to halt Hamas’ attempts to regroup.

“The situation unfolding in northern Gaza is apocalyptic,” said a joint statement by the heads of UN agencies.

“The area has been under siege for nearly a month, denied basic aid and rescue supplies, while shelling and other attacks continue,” they said.

“The entire Palestinian population in northern Gaza is at imminent risk of death from disease, starvation and violence.”

In the Gaza City area, doctors administered polio vaccines to children. The World Health Organization said the necessary second round would begin on Saturday in the north of the territory after Israeli shelling blocked the road.

Witnesses said Israeli warplanes struck Beit Lahia, near Jabalia, twice overnight.

DEATH IN GAZA

The Israeli military said on Saturday that dozens of militants were killed around Jabalia “in air and ground activities”.

Troops were also operating in central Gaza and in Rafah, in the far south of the territory, it added.

Gaza civil defense medics and rescuers reported on Saturday that three people were killed in a strike in Nuseirat, central Gaza, a day after several people were killed in an Israeli attack.

After nearly a year of tit-for-tat exchanges across Israel’s northern border, which Hezbollah said were in support of Hamas, Israel escalated its bombing campaign against targets in Lebanon on September 23 and subsequently sent ground troops.

Since then, Hezbollah has pulled deeper into Israel.

A strike in Israel’s Sharon area, north of Tel Aviv, injured 19 people, four of them moderately, police said Saturday, after the military reported three projectiles fired from Lebanon into central Israel.

The Israeli military says 37 soldiers have been killed in Lebanon since it began ground operations, and Israeli figures show at least 63 people have been killed on the Israeli side of the border in the past year.

Hezbollah said it had again fired rockets at Israel’s Glilot intelligence base near Tel Aviv and also claimed to have fired rockets at “military industries” in the Haifa area.

AFP images from Tira, a city northeast of Tel Aviv, showed the top wall blown off in what appeared to be a residential building.

Several cars below were crushed.

Since the war escalated, Israeli attacks have killed at least 1,911 people in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally of Health Ministry figures.

The October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas killed 1,206 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.

Israel’s military campaign of revenge has killed 43,314 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-ruled territory’s Ministry of Health, which the UN considers reliable.