Thursday, September 19, 2024

US military gears up for Iran’s revenge for Hamas leader’s assassination

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The regime may launch a barrage of missiles on Israel from Iranian territory, as it did in April in response to an Israeli strike on Iran’s Damascus consulate, which killed several of its senior commanders.

This would require a coordinated aerial response from Israel’s Western allies and Arab states to intercept missiles as they fly toward Israel.

Iran may also respond by trying to assassinate a senior commander or other top figure on the Israeli side, either in Israel or abroad. Another possibility would be an attack on an Israeli embassy.

Iran has also said Hezbollah, its proxy in Lebanon, will strike “broader and deeper” civilian and military targets in Israel in response to the earlier killing of Fuad Shukr, a Hezbollah commander, in Beirut.

That attack had been launched by Israel in retaliation for a missile strike on a football pitch in the occupied Golan Heights that killed 12 children and youths from the Druze community.

An Iranian regime official told CBS: “The [Israeli] regime’s attack in Beirut and the targeting of a residential building marked a deviation from these boundaries. We anticipate that, in its response, Hezbollah will choose both broader and deeper targets, and will not restrict itself solely to military targets and means.”

Sweden has closed down its embassy in Beirut amid fears of the outbreak of full-scale war with Israel. “The foreign ministry has instructed its staff to leave Beirut and travel to Cyprus, and the foreign ministry is planning a temporary relocation of its embassy,” the foreign ministry said.

Separately, a Hamas military commander has reportedly been killed in an IDF strike along with four others in the West Bank town of Tulkarem. IDF troops entered Tulkarem on the ground and there was an exchange of fire with militants there on Saturday morning.

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