Jerusalem:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Tuesday that Israel – not the United States – will decide how to retaliate after Iran fired about 200 missiles at his country earlier this month.
The comments came as a top Iranian commander, whose absence sparked rumors he could have been killed in an Israeli strike, made his first public appearance in weeks.
Israel and the Iran-backed group Hezbollah also exchanged fire as fighting raged in Lebanon, while humanitarian groups raised the alarm about a serious humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.
On October 1, Iran launched a salvo of about 200 rockets at Israel in response to an Israeli attack in the Lebanese capital Beirut, killing Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Iranian General Abbas Nilforoushan.
Israel has vowed to respond to the attack. Biden – whose government is Israel’s largest arms supplier – has warned against targeting Iran’s nuclear or oil facilities to prevent a wider war.
According to a Washington Post report on Monday citing unnamed US officials, Netanyahu has reassured the White House that Israel is only considering attacking military sites.
A statement from Netanyahu’s office on Tuesday had a different tone.
“We listen to the opinions of the United States, but we will make our final decisions based on our national interest,” the statement said.
Also on Tuesday, Esmail Qaani, the head of Iran’s powerful Quds Force, attended Nilforoushan’s funeral, dispelling rumors that he had been killed.
Israel and Hezbollah exchange fire
The Israeli army launched several attacks on eastern Lebanon on Tuesday, a day after Netanyahu vowed to “attack Hezbollah mercilessly in all parts of Lebanon – including Beirut”.
Multiple Israeli airstrikes hit the eastern Bekaa Valley, putting a hospital in the town of Baalbek out of service, Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) reported.
“It was a violent night in Baalbek, we have not seen anything like it since the war between Israel and Lebanon in 2006,” 50-year-old resident Nidal al-Solh told AFP.
Israeli strikes have targeted Hezbollah strongholds and other parts of Lebanon, including a northern Christian-majority village where at least 21 people were killed on Monday, according to the Health Ministry.
Anis Abla, head of civil defense in the southern border town of Marjayoun, said “our rescue missions are becoming increasingly difficult because the attacks are never-ending and focused on us.”
At least 1,315 people have been killed in Lebanon since Israel escalated its bombing there last month, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese Health Ministry figures, although the real toll is likely higher.
At least 690,000 people have been displaced by the war in Lebanon, according to verified figures from the International Organization for Migration last week.
UNICEF and the World Food Program called on Tuesday for more funding to meet “increasing” needs in Lebanon.
‘Completely unjustified’
Israel says it wants to push back Hezbollah to secure its northern border and allow tens of thousands of people displaced by rocket fire since last year to return safely home.
Hezbollah claimed several attacks early Tuesday, including targeting Israeli forces in northern Israel with a volley of rockets.
It also said it downed an Israeli Hermes 450 drone overnight, without specifying where.
Hezbollah fighters also clashed with Israeli forces in a Lebanese border village and sent rockets towards the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona, the group said.
Hezbollah says its attacks also provide support to Palestinian militants Hamas who attacked Israel on October 7 last year, sparking the ongoing war with Israel in the Gaza Strip.
Israel has faced fresh criticism over injuries and damage suffered by UNIFIL, the United Nations peacekeeping force deployed in Lebanon since 1978, following an earlier Israeli invasion.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whose country is the second largest contributor to UNIFIL peacekeepers, lashed out at the Israeli attacks. The attitude of the Israeli forces was “completely unjustified”, she told the Italian Senate.
The UN Security Council on Monday expressed “major concerns” for the first time about the injured peacekeepers in Lebanon.
UNIFIL has rejected Netanyahu’s request for peacekeepers to “stay out of harm’s way”, with UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix saying the blue helmets will remain in their positions.
‘Unimaginable fear’ in Gaza
While deploying troops in Lebanon, Israel has continued its bombardment of Gaza, where it has been at war since the Hamas attack on southern Israel.
That attack resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures, including hostages who died in captivity.
Israel’s military retaliation campaign in Gaza has killed 42,344 people in the Hamas-controlled area, the majority of them civilians, according to the Health Ministry. The UN has described the figures as reliable.
At a school in the central Nuseirat camp hit by an Israeli attack, Fatima al-Azab said there is no security anywhere in Gaza.
“They are all children sleeping in the blankets, all burned and cut to pieces,” she said.
In northern Gaza, the Israeli army announced that it had effectively laid siege to the Jabalia area in an attempt to drive out Hamas fighters.
The International Committee for the Red Cross warned that “families in northern Gaza are facing unimaginable fear, loss of loved ones, confusion and exhaustion.”
“People must be able to flee safely,” said Adrian Zimmerman of the ICRC.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)