Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has said that Israel will decide alone on the form of any retaliation to Iran’s barrage of 180 missiles fired at the country earlier this month, although it would listen to advice from Washington.
The comments came after US media reported that the Israeli prime minister had given an assurance to the US president, Joe Biden, that Israel would not attack sites associated with Iran’s nuclear programme or oilfields before the US presidential election.
On Tuesday, Israel continued to press its offensive in Lebanon and Gaza, with airstrikes in Gaza killing a further 50 Palestinians as Israeli forces fought Hamas and other militants in the north of the territory.
Tens of thousands of civilians have been trapped in the densely populated northern Gaza neighbourhood of Jabaliya by a new Israeli military operation there. Most are suffering appalling conditions and mounting casualties from Israeli shelling, bombs and missiles.
Israeli military officials accuse Hamas of using civilians as human shields, a charge the militant Islamist organisation denies.
In Lebanon, Israel’s military launched several strikes in eastern areas, a day after Netanyahu vowed to “mercilessly strike Hezbollah in all parts of Lebanon – including Beirut”.
Warplanes targeted the eastern Bekaa valley, putting a hospital in the city of Baalbek out of service, Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported. “It was a violent night in Baalbek, we have not witnessed a similar one since the 2006 war between Israel and Lebanon”, 50-year-old resident Nidal al-Solh told Agence France-Presse.
Israeli strikes have targeted Hezbollah strongholds as well as other parts of Lebanon, including a northern Christian-majority village where at least 21 people were killed on Monday, according to the health ministry. A quarter of the country is now subject to Israeli evacuation orders, aid officials say.
“People are heeding these calls to evacuate, and they’re fleeing with almost nothing,” the UN refugee agency’s Middle East director, Rema Jamous Imseis, told reporters.
Israel says it wants to push back Hezbollah in order to secure its northern boundary and allow tens of thousands of people displaced by rocket fire since last year to return home safely.
Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, claimed responsibility for several attacks on Tuesday, including one targeting Israeli troops in northern Israel. Warning sirens sounded repeatedly in Israeli towns through the day.
A Hezbollah drone attack on an army base in central Israel killed four soldiers on Sunday in the deadliest such strike by the militant group since Israel launched its ground invasion of Lebanon nearly two weeks ago.
Hezbollah says its strikes are also in support of Palestinian militant group Hamas, which attacked Israel on 7 October last year, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and triggering the latest conflict.
On Tuesday, Naim Qassem, Hezbollah’s de facto leader, said the group would inflict “pain” on Israel but also called for a deal to end hostilities.
“The solution is a ceasefire. We are not speaking from a position of weakness; if the Israelis do not want that, we will continue,” Qassem said in a recorded speech.
The region remains on the brink of further escalation, with the multi-front war fought by Israel risking a regional conflagration. Qassem linked any potential ceasefire with an end to hostilities in Gaza, as Hezbollah has done throughout the conflict.
On 1 October, Iran launched more than 180 missiles at Israel in response to an Israeli strike in Lebanon’s capital, Beirut, that killed Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s veteran leader, and Abbas Nilforoushan, an Iranian general. Israel has vowed to respond to the attack.
Iran views Hezbollah as the keystone of its “axis of resistance”, a loose coalition of allied, Tehran-backed armed militant groups across the Middle East.
The US has warned Israel against striking Iran’s nuclear or oil facilities, fearing a broader war and turmoil on the world’s energy markets. A US air defence battery has now arrived in Israel to bolster its protection against Iranian ballistic missiles.
According to a Washington Post report on Monday, Netanyahu has told the White House that Israel was only contemplating targeting military sites.
A statement from Netanyahu’s office on Tuesday denied any such commitment. “We listen to the opinions of the United States but we will make our final decisions based on our national interest,” the statement said.
Analysts say there is no shortage of military targets that Israel could strike, including many linked to the hardline Islamic Revolutionary Guards.
In Iran on Tuesday, Esmail Qaani, a general who commands Iran’s Quds Force, made his first public appearance for several weeks when he attended the funeral for Nilforoushan. There have been recent rumours that Qaani had also been killed in an Israeli strike or even been detained by Iranian intelligence services hunting spies. The Quds Force is part of the Revolutionary Guards and specialises in overseas and clandestine activities.
At least 1,315 people have been killed in Lebanon since Israel last month escalated its bombing there, according to Lebanese health ministry figures, although the real toll is most likely higher. The war there has displaced at least 690,000 people, according to verified figures last week from the International Organization for Migration.
Israel has faced new criticism over injuries and damage sustained by the UN interim force in Lebanon (Unifil), the peacekeeping body deployed in the country since 1978, after a previous Israeli invasion.
On Monday, the UN security council for the first time expressed “strong concerns” over peacekeepers being wounded in Lebanon.
Unifil has refused Netanyahu’s request for peacekeepers to “get out of harm’s way”.
The Hamas-led attack into Israel in October last year also resulted in the abduction of about 250 people, mostly civilians. Israeli officials say half of the 100 hostages who remain in Gaza may now be dead.
Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed 42,344 people, the majority civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
At a school turned shelter hit by an Israeli strike in the central Nuseirat camp, Fatima al-Azab said “there is no safety anywhere” in Gaza. “They are all children, sleeping in the covers, all burned and cut up,” she said.
