Region

GAZA STRIP, Occupied Palestine — Resistance movement Hamas's armed wing said on Sunday its fighters were engaged in "heavy fighting" with Israeli occupation forces in Gaza after Israeli military deployed more ground forces across the Palestinian territory.

"Our fighters are currently engaged in heavy fighting with machine-guns and anti-tank weapons with the invading occupation [Israeli] forces in northwest Gaza," the Ezzedine Al Qassam Brigades said in a statement.

In an earlier statement the group said two Israeli tanks had caught fire after they were targeted by its fighters, a claim which the army has not confirmed.

Israeli forces continued to pound north Gaza with air and artillery shelling on Sunday evening.

Earlier on Sunday the army said it had increased the number of troops fighting inside the Gaza Strip as it stepped up its war on Hamas in the tiny coastal territory.

Israeli forces had made several smaller-scale ground incursions inside Gaza before, but the current one has been their longest presence in the territory since the latest violence erupted.

TEHRAN — Since the Israel-Hamas war broke out, Iran has issued near-daily warnings of a widening conflict to its arch foes Israel and the United States but appears keen to steer clear of direct confrontation, analysts say.

The Islamic republic has lauded the "success" of the October 7 attacks by Hamas fighters that Israeli officials say killed 1,400 people.

Tehran has also condemned as a "genocide" Israel's heavy retaliatory bombardment of the blockaded Gaza Strip, which the Hamas-run health ministry says has killed more than 8,000 people, also mostly civilians.

But, aside from its strong anti-Israel and anti-US rhetoric, which have been at the heart of Iran's foreign policy since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, it remains unclear how far Iran would be willing to go in case of a wider escalation.

Since the outbreak of the Gaza conflict, Tehran has repeatedly declared that it opposes the conflict's expansion to other parts of the Middle East, while also denying involvement in the October 7 attacks.

Western and Israeli leaders have also said there was no evidence Iran was directly involved.

“Iran is not interested in entering this war directly,” judged Iranian journalist and international relations expert Hadi Mohammadi.

Sara Bazoobandi, research fellow at Germany-based GIGA Institute for Middle East Studies, agreed.

“The Iranians made it clear from the outset that they do not want direct involvement or confrontation,” she said.

‘Risk of spillover’ 

The Iran-backed Hizbollah in Lebanon has issued similar warnings as Tehran and traded cross-border fire with Israel.

Bazoobandi said that “Iran keeps warning about the involvement of Hezbollah and other elements of the so-called ‘resistance front’.

“They have been careful in formulating the wording in these warnings. One of the major reasons is that the threat is quite serious.”

Still, the Islamic republic has cautioned against a full-blown ground invasion of Gaza by Israeli forces which have so far made limited incursions.

President Ebrahim Raisi said on Sunday Israel’s actions “have crossed a red line” which “may force everyone to take action”.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Raisi said Iran sees it as “its duty to support the resistance groups” but insisted that they “are independent in their opinion, decision and action”.

Bazoobandi said Iran “will not abandon that [anti-Israeli] narrative, but at the same time they have been trying to distance themselves from this crisis, because of the high risk of spillover.

“Iran may see a spillover as a threat to its influence in the region and a potential threat to its territories.”

Iran’s public assertions appear to counter accusations by the United States which blamed Iran-backed militant groups for targeting its troops in Syria and Iraq, wounding some 20 US soldiers.

Washington has recently deployed two aircraft carrier groups into the eastern Mediterranean in a move it says aims to deter Iran and Hezbollah from getting involved in the Hamas-Israel war.

On Thursday, the US military said it had struck two facilities in eastern Syria used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and affiliated groups.

‘High cost’ 

Bazoobandi said one of Iran’s main security doctrines has for decades been to “keep the conflict away from its own borders”.

But, “to maintain its position in the region”, Iran “will have to support its proxies during this crisis,” she said. “This might come with a high cost.”

Iran has threatened Israel with a “devastating response” if it were to attack its territory.

Mohammadi believes that Iran is only likely to engage in direct conflict “if Israel attacks the Iranian territory or Iran’s strategic interests in other countries”.

During recent military drills in central Iran, Defence Minister Mohammad Reza Ashtiani warned that “any inconsiderate act against Iran will provoke a strong reaction”.

Bazoobandi said that “the most important aim of Hamas’ surprise attack on October 7, in my opinion, was to humiliate Israel’s security services, and Iran has praised Hamas for this”.

For Iran, she said, “observing this humiliation would suffice, without further escalation”.

RAMALLAH, Occupied Palestine — Israeli occupation troops killed five Palestinians on Sunday across the occupied West Bank, health officials said, raising to more than 110 the death toll in surging violence there since the start of the Gaza war.

The Palestinian health ministry said five people aged 29 to 35 were shot dead by Israeli forces at dawn, two of them in Nablus’s Askar refugee camp.

The other incidents took place in Beit Rima, northwest of Ramallah, Bethlehem’s Dheisheh refugee camp and in Tamun north of Nablus.

The Palestinian ministry did not provide further details.

Since October 7, “over 1,030 wanted suspects have been apprehended” in the West Bank, “700 of whom are affiliated with Hamas”, the army said, as its forces fight the militant group in the Gaza Strip.

On Saturday, a 40-year-old Palestinian who was harvesting his olives was killed by a settler in the village of Sawiya near Nablus, the health ministry said.

BEIRUT — A UN peacekeeper was injured on Saturday by shelling in south Lebanon, the mission’s spokesman said, hours after reporting a hit at its headquarters as Israel-Lebanon border skirmishes intensify amid war in Gaza.

“One peacekeeper was lightly injured” near the border village of Hula, said Andrea Tenenti, spokesperson for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) said a Nepalese peacekeeper was “moderately injured in the stomach and arm after two Israeli shells” fell in Hula.

Earlier on Saturday, Tenenti had told AFP that “a shell hit inside the base” in Naqura, where UNIFIL headquarters are located, indicating there were “no injuries but some damage”.

He said UNIFIL was seeking to verify who fired the shells.

A Lebanese military source, who spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to talk to the media, said “an Israeli shell penetrated the cement wall” around the UNIFIL headquarters.

The shell did not explode, a UNIFIL statement said, adding that “several of our other positions have also sustained damage in the past three weeks” and urging “all parties to immediately cease fire”.

Since Palestinian group Hamas carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip on October 7, Lebanon’s southern border has seen tit-for-tat exchanges between Israel and the Iran-backed Hizbollah, a Hamas ally.

The cross-border skirmishes have killed at least 58 people in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally, mostly Hizbollah combatants but also four civilians, including Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah.

At least four people have been killed on the Israeli side, including one civilian.

The unrest has displaced nearly 29,000 people across Lebanon, according to the International Organisation for Migration.

On October 15, UNIFIL said its headquarters was struck by a rocket but nobody was hurt.

Hizbollah said it attacked a number of Israeli positions on Saturday, using artillery, guided missiles and other weapons.

Israel’s army confirmed that “several anti-tank missile and mortar shell launches” had been fired at its posts along the border, indicating they “fell in open areas”.

It said its tanks and artillery were “responding with fire towards the origin of the launches and striking Hizbollah military infrastructure in Lebanon”.

GENEVA — The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk warned on Saturday there was the potential for thousands more civilians to die if Israel presses a major ground offensive in Gaza.

Israel's army relentlessly hammered the territory on Saturday after fierce overnight bombardment that rescuers said destroyed hundreds of buildings three weeks into a war sparked by the deadliest attack in the country's history.

"Given the manner in which military operations have been conducted until now, in the context of the 56-year-old occupation, I am raising alarm about the possibly catastrophic consequences of large-scale ground operations in Gaza and the potential for thousands more civilians to die," Turk said.

"There is no safe place in Gaza and there is no way out. I am very worried for my colleagues, as I am for all civilians in Gaza."

"Compounding the misery and suffering of civilians, Israeli strikes on telecommunications installations and subsequent Internet shutdown have effectively left Gazans with no way of knowing what is happening across Gaza and cut them off from the outside world," he said.

"Ambulances and civil defence teams are no longer able to locate the injured, or the thousands of people estimated to be still under the rubble.

“When these hostilities end, those who have survived will face the rubble of their homes and the graves of their family members,” Turk said.

He called on all parties “to do all in their power to de-escalate the conflict”.

The conflict is the fifth and deadliest in Gaza since Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Palestinian territory in 2005.

The latest Israeli strikes against Hamas, the resistance group that has ruled Gaza since 2007, were the most intense since the war broke out. They coincided with ground operations.

“Continued violence is not the answer. I call on all parties as well as third States, in particular those with influence over the parties to the conflict, to do all in their power to de-escalate this conflict,” Turk added.

GAZA STRIP, Occupied Palestine — Israel's army relentlessly hammered Gaza on Saturday after fierce overnight bombardment that rescuers said destroyed hundreds of buildings three weeks into a war sparked by the deadliest attack in the country's history.

The United Nations warned thousands more civilians could die as Israel escalated ground operations, while the families of Israeli hostages held by Hamas said the government snubbed them when asking about the captives' fate.

Israel unleashed its bombing campaign after Hamas fighters stormed across the Gaza border on October 7, killing 1,400 people and seizing more than 220 hostages, according to Israeli officials.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Israeli strikes had killed 7,703 people, mainly civilians, with more than 3,500 of them children.

The conflict is the fifth and deadliest in Gaza since Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Palestinian territory in 2005.

The intense Israeli strikes against Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, coincided with ground operations and came as tens of thousands of troops massed along the Gaza border ahead of an expected full-blown invasion.

Israeli occupation forces had also made limited ground incursions on Wednesday and Thursday.

“Hundreds of buildings and houses were completely destroyed and thousands of other homes were damaged,” said Gaza Civil Defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal.

Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine Al Qassam Brigades, said it targeted Israeli forces in an area of northern Gaza near the border on Saturday.

Israeli warplanes flew overhead and successive booms could be heard coming from Gaza, AFP journalists reported.

A thick haze of smoke covered Gaza and southern Israel after the night of heavy bombardment.

“There are a large number of martyrs and a large number of survivors under the rubble, and we cannot reach them,” a Gaza civil defence official said.

“The stench of death is everywhere, in every neighbourhood, every street and every house,” respiratory physician Raed Al Astal told AFP from Khan Yunis in southern Gaza.

 ‘Stop this madness’ 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said “Israel must immediately stop this madness and end its attacks” in a post on X on Saturday, after the UN General Assembly called for an “immediate humanitarian truce” in Gaza.

The non-binding resolution on Friday received overwhelming support, but Israel and the United States criticised it for failing to mention Hamas.

Israel’s bombardment has displaced more than 1.4 million people inside Gaza, according to the UN, while supplies of food, water and power to the crowded territory have been almost completely cut off.

Israel has blocked all deliveries of fuel, saying it would be exploited by Hamas to manufacture weapons and explosives.

A first tranche of aid was allowed on October 21, but only 84 have crossed in total, according to the UN, which says a daily average of 500 trucks had entered Gaza before the conflict.

UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said Gazans were “not only dying from bombs and strikes, soon many more will die from the consequences of [the] siege”.

“These few trucks are nothing more than crumbs that will not make a difference.”

Violence has also risen sharply in the occupied West Bank since the October 7 attacks, with more than 100 Palestinians killed and nearly 2,000 wounded, according to the UN.

WASHINGTON — The United States said Friday it sought to degrade ammunition supplies of Iranian-linked militias with strikes in Syria but insisted it did not want to widen the Middle East conflict.

The Pentagon on Thursday announced air strikes on two sites in eastern Syria it said were used by Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) after a string of attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

"The purpose for those two sites that we targeted was to have a significant impact on future IRGC and Iran-backed militia group operations," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters Friday.

"It went right at storage facilities and ammo depots that we know will be used to support the work of these militia groups, particularly in Syria."

"The main goal was to disrupt that ability and also to deter, to prevent,  future attacks," he said.

The White House earlier said that President Joe Biden had relayed a direct warning to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei against militias' strikes on US troops in Syria and Iraq, where US forces are stationed as part of efforts against the Islamic State group, which also has clashed with Shiite Iran.

There have been at least 14 attacks on US and allied forces in Iraq and six in Syria since October 17, a period in which 21 American military personnel suffered minor injuries and one contractor died from a cardiac incident, according to the Pentagon.

The US strikes on Thursday were the first on Iranian interests since March, breaking a stretch of calm after the Biden administration opened quiet diplomacy with the US arch-enemy that led to a prisoner swap and conversations on Iran’s disputed nuclear programme.

The October 7 assault by Hamas and Israel’s strikes have inflamed the region. Iran’s clerical leaders back Hamas, while the United States is the foremost ally of Israel.

Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, in a statement Thursday, said that the strikes were “narrowly tailored” to protect US personnel.

“They are separate and distinct from the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, and do not constitute a shift in our approach to the Israel-Hamas conflict,” Austin said.

The Pentagon said on Friday evening that its current assessment is the strikes did not cause casualties.

 ‘Finger on the trigger’ 

The Biden administration has vowed to target the finances of Hamas, which holds hundreds of millions of dollars in global assets, according to US Treasury Department estimates.