Israeli forces raid homes of alleged Jaffa attackers
Just before the Iranian missiles hit Israel, a shooting incident in Jaffa resulted in the killing of at least seven people.
We’re now hearing that Israeli forces stormed Hebron, in the southern occupied West Bank, and raided homes of the Palestinians they blamed were part of the attack that also injured 15 people.
Israeli forces began searching two houses and interrogated families. They also closed all entrances and exits leading to Hebron and declared it a closed military zone.
Far deadlier than the missile attacks in which so far only 1 Palestinian in the West Bank has died from shrapnel and 2 minor injuries in Israel. (Israel is likely not going to admit to any casualties on the military bases that were hit. Yet videos have shown multiple direct impacts)
Israel’s military says attacking targets in Beirut
The Israeli army’s announcement comes shortly after Lebanon’s Health Ministry said that at least 55 people were killed and 156 others injured in Israeli attacks on the south of the country over the past 24 hours.
Also far more people killed daily than today's missile attack.
Israeli attacks in Lebanon are deadlier than the 2006 war
The Israeli military [has called] on residents of two areas in the southern Beirut suburb to evacuate because their houses, according to the Israelis, are close to Hezbollah centres.
Israel is continuing its attacks in Lebanon, with about 55 people killed in one day. On Monday, it was about 95. The number of people killed in the last 12 months now is inching closer to 2,000, which is far more than in the 2006 war when it was 1,200 in 33 days.
Today, there were attacks in the afternoon on two residential buildings just outside the southern suburb close to the centre of Beirut that killed three people.
Everyone here is now anticipating, especially after the Iranian attack on Israel, how this is going to unfold and whether there’s going to be more escalation over the coming hours and days.
US House Speaker calls for return to ‘maximum pressure’ against Iran
The United States Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has issued a statement calling for the US to send Iran a “strong response”.
“We pray for their safety and urge the Biden-Harris Administration to deliver a strong message to the Iranian regime that this unjustified violence and terror must end. The strategy of appeasement has failed, and a policy of interdiction is not enough,” Johnson said in a statement.
“Our adversaries are carrying out increasingly dangerous attacks because of Biden and Harris’ weak and failed foreign policy. The world needs America to return to a maximum pressure campaign against Iran, and President Biden needs to make clear that there will be decisive economic and potential military ramifications for these actions,” he added.
‘Very dangerous dynamic’: Escalation leads to more escalation
Ryan Costello, a policy director at the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), a US-based group that promotes diplomacy, says the Middle East finds itself at a perilous moment.
“It’s a very dangerous dynamic where each side is trying to set new red lines or escalate past other red lines, and we don’t know, unfortunately, how devastating this could get,” Costello told Al Jazeera.
He dismissed the notion that increased violence would lead to de-escalation or prevent further attacks. Earlier this month, the US news outlet Axios reported that the Biden administration supported Israel’s policy of “de-escalation through escalation” with Hezbollah.
“The saying is: An eye for an eye makes the whole world go blind. And I think that’s going to be the case if the parties continue to go down that road of trying to escalate,” Costello said.
He added that Biden’s “blank check” for Netanyahu to continue the war in Gaza and attack Lebanon triggered the Iranian escalation. “What we really need to see here is some US leadership to pull [Netanyahu] back and try to stop this thing from spiralling out of control before it’s too late.”
