Iran’s highest authority, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has indicated that the Israeli aerial assaults on Iran over the weekend cannot be brushed off as insignificant. This statement marks his first public communication following the strikes carried out by Israel on Iran. However, he refrained from advocating any retaliatory action.
Khamenei met with the relatives of the fours servicemen who lost their lives in the strikes, expressing a standpoint that the Israeli strikes must be neither understated nor overly magnified. He labelled the strikes as “malignant”. Israel’s attempt to exaggerate the effects of the raids were criticised by the Ayatollah, who stated: “One shouldn’t claim they were trivial and unimportant”.
An array of military sites across Iran were targeted by the Israeli Defence Force’s fighter jets and drones in the attack, reports the New York Times. Saturday’s assault primarily targeted air defence, radar facilities, and factories for long-range missiles, marking an unprecedented open strike by Israel on Iran following years of covert conflict. Iranian media outlets reported the demise of four soldiers.
Claims that Israel’s original plan was to target Iranian oil and gas facilities were rejected by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s office. Allegedly, the plan was revised due to US pressure, resulting in the focus shifting towards Iranian military targets.
Simultaneously, around 40 Palestinians were killed, and almost double that number injured over the weekend in the ongoing Israeli assaults on Beit Lahiya, a region in northern Gaza. The strikes were aimed at a group of nearly five residences near a western roundabout in Beit Lahiya, as per reports from Wafa journalists.
Further harm was inflicted with another Israeli strike on a home in Jabalia on Sunday, which resulted in multiple causalities. This adds to increasing tensions in northern Gaza, where Israeli forces have been intensifying their activities.
Healthcare professionals have reported that a recent attack caused significant damage to several homes in Jabalia, the biggest among the eight ancient refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, which has remained the centre of the Israeli military attacks for more than 21 days. The Israeli government asserts that its military moved back into North Gaza to harbour out militant groups, a year after the ongoing conflict with Hamas started. Israel confirmed last Friday that it lost three soldiers in a fight in the North of the territory.
In a statement, the Israeli army mentioned it had “exterminated more than 40 assailants” within the last day in the Jabalia region, along with the breakdown of structure, and discovery of “significant volumes of military equipment”. According to officials, the reinitiated attack by the Israeli forces on North Gaza which began at the start of October has resulted in about 1,000 Palestinians losing their lives. – Guardian.