Israeli defense minister warns an attack on Iran would be ‘lethal’ and ‘surprising’

[Pelican Press 0]

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******** defense minister warns an ******* on Iran would be ‘lethal’ and ‘surprising’

JERUSALEM (AP) — *******’s defense minister warned on Wednesday that his country’s retaliation for a recent Iranian missile ******* will be “lethal” and “surprising,” while the ******** military pushed ahead with a large-scale operation in northern Gaza and a ground offensive in Lebanon against Hezbollah militants.

On the diplomatic front, ******** Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Joe Biden held

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, with a White House press secretary saying the call included discussions on *******’s deliberations over how it will respond to Iran’s *******.

The continuing cycle of destruction and ****** in Gaza, unleashed by ******’ Oct. 7, 2023, ******* on southern *******, comes as ******* expands a weeklong ground offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon and

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following Iran’s Oct. 1 missile barrage.

“Our strike will be lethal, precise and above all, surprising. They won’t understand what happened and how. They will see the results,” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said during a speech to troops. “Whoever strikes us will be harmed and pay a price.”

Iran fired dozens of missiles at ******* on Oct. 1 which the ******* States helped fend off. Biden has said he would not support a retaliatory strike on sites related to Tehran’s

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On Wednesday, Hezbollah claimed a rocket ******* that ******* two people in the northern ******** town of Kiryat Shmona. The town’s acting mayor, Ofir Yehezkeli, said the two ******* were a couple walking their dogs.

Dozens ******* in Gaza and survivors ***** displacement

In northern Gaza, there was heavy fighting in Jabaliya, an urban ******** camp dating back to

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, where ******** forces have carried out several major operations over the course of the war and then returned as militants regroup. The entire north, including Gaza City, has suffered heavy destruction and has been largely isolated by ******** forces since late last year.

In Gaza, Jabaliya residents said thousands of people have been trapped in their homes since the operation began Sunday, as ******** jets and drones buzz overhead and troops battle militants in the streets.

“It’s like *****. We can’t get out,” said Mohamed Awda, who lives with his parents and six siblings. He said there were three bodies in the street outside his home that could not be retrieved because of the fighting.

“The quadcopters are everywhere, and they ***** at anyone. You can’t even open the window,” he told The Associated Press by phone, speaking over the sound of explosions.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said it recovered 40 bodies from Jabaliya from Sunday until Tuesday, and another 14 from communities farther north. There are likely more bodies under rubble and in areas that can’t be accessed, it said.

Jabaliya residents ***** ******* aims to depopulate the north and turn it into a closed military zone

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. ******* has blocked all roads except for the main highway leading south from Jabaliya, according to residents.

“People here say clearly that they will **** here in northern Gaza and won’t go to southern Gaza,” Ahmed Qamar, who lives in Jabaliya with his wife, children and parents, said in a text message.

Hospitals are under threat

Fadel Naeem, the director of Al-Ahly Hospital in Gaza City, said it had received dozens of wounded people and bodies from the north. “We declared a state of emergency, suspended scheduled surgeries, and discharged patients whose conditions are stable,” he told AP in a text message.

*******’s offensive has gutted Gaza’s health sector, forcing most hospitals to shut down and leaving the rest only partially functioning.

Naeem said three hospitals farther north — Kamal Adwan, Awda and the Indonesian Hospital – have become almost inaccessible because of the fighting. The Gaza Health Ministry says the ******** army has ordered all three to evacuate staff and patients. Meanwhile, no humanitarian aid has entered the north since Oct. 1, according to U.N. data.

*******’s authority coordinating humanitarian affairs in ************ territories said ******* “has not halted the entry or coordination of humanitarian aid entering from its territory into the northern Gaza Strip.”

******* says it only targets militants and blames civilian deaths on ****** because it fights in residential areas.

******* ordered the wholesale evacuation of northern Gaza, including Gaza City, in the opening weeks of the war, but hundreds of thousands of people are believed to have remained there. ******* reiterated those instructions over the weekend, telling people to flee south to a humanitarian zone where hundreds of thousands are already crammed into squalid tent camps.

The war began just over a year ago, when ******-led militants stormed into southern *******, ******** some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250. They still hold around 100 hostages, a third of whom are believed to be *****.

*******’s offensive has ******* over 42,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not say how many were fighters. It has said women and children make up over half of the *****. The offensive has also caused

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and displaced around 90% of the population of 2.3 million people,

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.

******** Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to keep fighting until “total victory” over ****** and the return of all hostages.

******* warns Lebanon it could end up like Gaza

On Tuesday, Netanyahu said Lebanon would meet the same fate as Gaza if its people did not rise up against Hezbollah.

In recent weeks ******* has waged a heavy air campaign across large parts of Lebanon, targeting what it says are Hezbollah rocket launchers and other militant sites. A series of strikes had *******

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.

An ******** airstrike on Wednesday hit a Lebanese Civil Defense center in the town of Dardghaya in southern Lebanon, ******** five members who were stationed there, civil defense spokesperson Elie Khairallah told The Associated Press. Among the victims was Abdullah Al-Moussawi, head of the Tyre Regional Center in the Lebanese Civil Defense, Khairallah said.

Just last week, Al-Moussawi spoke with the Associated Press, saying the ******** airstrikes had made his team increasingly nervous, but that they were hopeful that the international protection guaranteed to medics will extend to them as well.

There was no immediate statement from the ******** military. As of last Thursday, the Lebanese Health Ministry reported that over 100 paramedics had been ******* by ******** airstrikes.

Another strike on Wednesday ******* four people and wounded another 10 at a hotel sheltering displaced people in the southern Lebanese town of Wardaniyeh, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said.

An Associated Press reporter in a nearby town heard two sonic booms from ******** jets before the strike. Plumes of smoke rose from the building after the **********.

The ******** military said Wednesday that Hezbollah has fired more than 12,000 rockets, missiles and drones at ******* in the past year.

Video verified by The Associated Press also shows what appears to be a group of ******** soldiers raising an ******** flag in a village in southern Lebanon.

In the video, which appears to have been filmed in Maroun A-Ras, three soldiers are seen hoisting up a flag atop a pile of debris. A soldier off camera speaks in Hebrew and refers to the nearby ******** village of Avivim. The date it was filmed wasn’t immediately known.

The video follows other similar acts that took place throughout *******’s ground offensive in Gaza. The ******** military had no immediate comment.

___

Magdy reported from Cairo and Shurafa from Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip. Associated Press writers Sarah El Deeb, Sally Abou AlJoud and Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut, and Natalie Melzer in Tel Aviv, *******, contributed to this report.

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#******** #defense #minister #warns #******* #Iran #lethal #surprising

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