Israel has escalated its military operations on two fronts with heavy bombing raids and mass evacuation orders in southern Lebanon and Gaza, as officials issued new threats of a retaliatory strike against Iran before the one-year anniversary of the 7 October Hamas attacks.
Benjamin Netanyahu visited troops near the Lebanese border on Sunday for the first time and declared that Israel would “emerge victorious” in the conflict, as European leaders including Keir Starmer issued renewed calls for a ceasefire to halt the simultaneous wars in Lebanon and Gaza that have killed more than 42,000 people in the last year.
But Israeli forces were poised to escalate their attacks, issuing a new blanket evacuation order for all of the northern Gaza Strip, where hundreds of thousands of civilians remain, as a military spokesperson declared a “new phase of the war” against Hamas.
Health workers in Gaza said 24 people had been killed and dozens wounded in an Israeli airstrike on a mosque in central Gaza early on Sunday. Local aid workers said the mosque, which was near al-Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah, had housed people who had been displaced in earlier bombing raids. The Israeli military claimed that the mosque had been a “Hamas command post”.
Meanwhile, Israeli jets launched airstrikes on the Dahiyeh neighbourhood of southern Beirut in what Lebanon’s National News Agency called the “most severe” bombing of the war. Israeli attacks in the area, which is a stronghold for the Shia militia Hezbollah, have continued at such a high pace that rescue workers have been unable to access the area for days.
In Israel, one woman was killed and 10 people were wounded in a suspected terror attack at the central bus station in Be’er Sheva, a city in the Negev desert in southern Israel. Israel is on high alert in the hours before it begins commemorations for the anniversary of the 7 October attacks. The assailant, identified as Ahmad al-Uqbi, 29, was killed by police.
Photos and video posted on social media showed images of at least one person, possibly the attacker, lying on the ground in a pool of blood next to a McDonald’s close to the bus station. In another video, gunshots could be heard as soldiers in dark green uniforms ran through the station toward the shooting.
Following the attack, Miri Regev, Israel’s transportation minister, wrote that the family of the suspected attacker should be deported from the country. “The time has come for a deterrent punishment that prevents attacks on Israeli territory,” she wrote on X.
Earlier this week, seven people were killed in a terror attack in the neighbourhood of Jaffa in Tel Aviv. Hamas claimed the attack, which it called “the heroic Jaffa operation”, and said it was carried out by two Palestinian men from the West Bank town of Hebron. The two men, armed with automatic rifles, opened fire on passengers on a light railway before exiting the carriage and killing at least one of the victims.
Israel is preparing 7 October commemorations, with the president, Isaac Herzog, planning to conduct a three-day tour of the border communities along Gaza, beginning at the site of the Nova music festival near the Re’im kibbutz, where 364 people were killed during the Hamas attack.
Israel remains poised to launch fresh strikes against Iran after officials vowed to retaliate against a strike by Iran that included more than 180 missiles, according to Israel, and managed to hit a crucial airbase more than 30 times.
Speaking on Sunday, Yoav Gallant, the Israeli minister of defence, said the bombing had not affected the air force’s ability to operate, and vowed that Israel would strike back against Iran at a time of its choosing.
“The Iranians did not touch the air force’s capabilities – no aircraft was damaged, no squadron was taken out of order,” Gallant said during a visit to the Nevatim airbase. He added: “Whoever thinks that a mere attempt to harm us will deter us from taking action should take a look at [Israel’s campaigns] in Gaza and Beirut.”
Netanyahu visited troops from the 36th division, one of two divisions sent there for combat operations, along the Lebanese border. In remarks, the prime minister said he wished to “extend my deepest condolences to the families of our heroes who fell today in Lebanon.”
Israel has said dozens of its soldiers have been injured in Lebanon in the last week of combat, while Hezbollah claimed to have killed 20 soldiers over this weekend. The number of dead has not been confirmed by Israel.
“We’re in the heat of a gruelling war against Iran’s axis of evil, aimed at destroying us,” Netanyahu said. “That will not happen, because we shall stand together, and with God’s help, we shall emerge victorious together.”
Iran’s foreign minister on Saturday warned that Tehran would retaliate if attacked by Israel. “Our reaction to any attack by the Zionist regime is completely clear,” Abbas Araghchi told reporters during a trip to Syria. “For every action, there will be a proportional and similar reaction from Iran, and even stronger.”