Comments from PM’s office come amid continued attacks on Lebanon and Gaza and after reports of assurances to US
Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has said that Israel will decide alone on the form of any retaliation to Iran’s barrage of 180 missiles fired at the country earlier this month, although it would listen to advice from Washington.
The comments came after US media reported that the Israeli prime minister had given an assurance to the US president, Joe Biden, that Israel would not attack sites associated with Iran’s nuclear programme or oilfields before the US presidential election.
On Tuesday, Israel continued to press its offensive in Lebanon and Gaza, with airstrikes in Gaza killing a further 50 Palestinians as Israeli forces fought Hamas and other militants in the north of the territory.
Tens of thousands of civilians have been trapped in the densely populated northern Gaza neighbourhood of Jabaliya by a new Israeli military operation there. Most are suffering appalling conditions and mounting casualties from Israeli shelling, bombs and missiles.
In Lebanon, Israel’s military launched several strikes in eastern areas, a day after Netanyahu vowed to “mercilessly strike Hezbollah in all parts of Lebanon – including Beirut”.
Warplanes targeted the eastern Bekaa valley, putting a hospital in the city of Baalbek out of service, Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported. “It was a violent night in Baalbek, we have not witnessed a similar one since” the 2006 war between Israel and Lebanon, 50-year-old resident Nidal al-Solh told Agence France-Presse.
Israeli strikes have targeted Hezbollah strongholds as well as other parts of Lebanon, including a northern Christian-majority village where at least 21 people were killed on Monday, according to the health ministry.
The UN human rights office said on Tuesday it had received reports that most of the 22 victims of an Israeli airstrike on a building in northern Lebanon were women and children.
At a briefing, the UN refugee agency’s Middle East director, Rema Jamous Imseis, said that new Israeli evacuation orders to 20 villages in southern Lebanon meant that over a quarter of the country was affected.
“Now we have over 25% of the country under a direct Israeli military evacuation order,” she said.
