Israel’s threats fuel fears as Iran says ready to ‘any scenario’

ISTANBUL

The Israeli army continued its brutal assaults in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip on Thursday, with Iran asserting its readiness for "any scenario" in response to Israel's recent threats.

Israel’s ground invasion in Lebanon stretched into its second week, as Hezbollah fired hundreds of rockets deep into Israel — with no end in sight to the escalating conflict.

An Israeli airstrike hit a Lebanese Civil Defense center in southern Lebanon, killing five paramedics stationed there.

The Lebanese Health Ministry also confirmed the news in a statement, saying Israel has “renewed its targeting of rescue and ambulance crews tonight, disregarding international laws, norms and humanitarian conventions.”

In the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Red Crescent said an Israeli air strike on a Gaza school killed at least 28 people yesterday, while the Israeli military reported it struck a Hamas command center.

Israel’s security cabinet was set to vote yesterday on authorizing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to determine the response to last week’s Iranian missile attack.

Netanyahu spoke over the phone on Oct. 9 evening with U.S. President Joe Biden and his Vice President Kamala Harris on Israel's procedure against Iran. The White House said Biden told Netanyahu to "minimize harm" to civilians in Lebanon.

"There should be no kind of military action in Lebanon that looks anything like Gaza and leaves a result anything like Gaza," said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.

Sources speaking to the press revealed that the United States convinced Israel not to attack Iran's nuclear facilities.

Meanwhile, The Israeli defense minister warned that Israel’s strike on Iran will be “lethal, precise and especially surprising.” “They will not understand what happened and how it happened,” Gallant said.

In response to Gallant’s remarks, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi noted that his country is not pursuing war or an escalation of tensions in the region, but it is poised for” any scenario.

“We will assess how Israel's aggression manifests and will respond accordingly," he told Al Jazeera.

The Wall Street Journal yesterday said that Washington sees Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah as an opportunity to push the group out of the country’s politics.

It said that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been lobbying Arab leaders to back the election of a new president. Lebanon has been without a president since 2022 amid a failure by the country’s factions to reach an agreement on a candidate.

At the same time, the paper said that Egyptian and Qatari officials have downplayed the prospects of sidelining Hezbollah, saying any such plans are unrealistic, with no one wanting to be seen as gaining from the Israeli offensive.