25 Israeli raids on Beirut, mosque hit in Gaza: 24 dead and 93 injured. The attack on Iran, “is imminent”

John

By John

The toll of two Israeli attacks on a mosque and a school in Gaza has worsened, in which at least 24 Palestinians were killed and 93 injured. This was reported by the government press office in Gaza which accuses Israeli forces of having committed “two brutal massacres” during the night, bombing a mosque and a school transformed into a refuge. The targeted buildings were identified as the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Ibn Rushd School, in the center of the Gaza Strip. Both were hosting hundreds of displaced people, the press office said. The bombings follow 27 Israeli assaults on 27 homes and displacement centers in the Gaza Strip in the last 48 hours, according to the same source. (

First of all the response to Iran after the vast attack on October 1st which, as US sources reported, was “imminent”. Then internal security in view of feared attacks on civilians on the anniversary of 7 October and the expansion of operations in Gaza one year after the massacre. So the expansion of ground operations in southern Lebanon, intense raids on the neighborhood where Hezbollah is based in Beirut, the military blockade of Lebanese airspace, in addition to the bombing – after those of other crossings in recent days – of the Masnaa crossing, between Syria and Lebanon, to prevent the arrival of weapons sent to Shiite militias.

“Iran is behind all the threats against us. They launched hundreds of missiles at us in one of the largest attacks in history. No country in the world would accept such an attack, and not even Israel will accept it. We have the duty and the right to defend ourselves and respond to such attacks. And that is what we will do”, announced Benyamin Netanyahu in the evening in no uncertain terms, pointing the finger among other things at the French leader Emmanuel Macron who had called for an embargo on Israel of those attacks. weapons it uses in Gaza.

“Shame”, the Israeli prime minister addressed him, assuring that the Jewish state “will win with or without his support” and that of “other Western leaders”. But “their shame – accused Bibi – will last a long time”, even after the war is won.

During the day there had been meetings between the top leaders of the IDF and representatives of the allied countries to coordinate the operation against Tehran. Even the military commanders of the Jewish state were clear: “What Iran has done cannot be ignored.” As the Washington Post reported Friday describing several videos, about 25 devices overcame the defense system, hitting or exploding in the vicinity of at least three military and intelligence sites. As many as 20 ballistic missiles hit the Nevatim air base, three hit Tel Nof, and at least two missiles landed near the Mossad headquarters in Glilot. An open war never seen before.

The head of the US Central Military Command, General Michael Kurilla, is expected at the military coordination table and, despite the public declarations of Commander in Chief Joe Biden, his presence in Israel demonstrates that the plans for retaliation are subject to adjustments, but they are not in question. The US president warned Netanyahu by suggesting “alternatives” to the idea of ​​striking Iranian oil facilities. Just as in recent days he had said that “it was not a good idea” to attack nuclear power. On this topic, when it was night in Israel, a senior US State Department official told CNN that Israel has not provided the US administration with guarantees that it will not attack nuclear facilities: “It’s not out of the question, we expect to see a some wisdom as well as strength, but we have no guarantee of that,” he commented.

For its part, the IDF let it slip on Saturday that the response to the attack by the Revolutionary Guards will be “serious and significant”. From the point of view of analysts at home, a simple punitive and deterrent operation whose results would only be short-term makes no sense. And some go so far as to imagine the beginning of “a long-term campaign that will lead to the fall of the Iranian regime”, as Ynet underlined. In the United States, the Biden administration’s fears of a further widening of the crisis go hand in hand with the work behind the scenes to prevent the increase in energy prices a month before the American elections. The US fears that Iran and its followers in the region will try to damage the United States’ Arab allies in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and Jordan first and foremost.

Meanwhile in Beirut the rescuers, due to the continuous bombing by the IAF, have not yet managed to recover the victims of the attack in the Shiite neighborhood where, according to officials of the Jewish State, Hasan Nasrallah’s successor, Hashem Safieddine, was killed. Whose contact has been lost for days. With him at the bombed site there was probably also General Esmail Qaani, head of the Quds forces of the Pasdaran, appointed in 2020 after the assassination of Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad in a US operation. His fate is not yet clear, while the killing of the head of the armed wing in Lebanese territory Mohammed Hussein al-Lawis, and of Saeed Atallah Ali, “the executive authority of Hamas in Lebanon”, has been confirmed by the IDF.