Israel on alert ahead of Hamas attack anniversary

Buildings are reduced to rubble after Israeli airstrikes in the Jabalia camp for Palestinian refugees in Gaza City, in this photo taken October 11, 2023. Israel declared war on Hamas on October 8 after the Islamist group’s shock cross-border assault. (AFP)

JERUSALEM – Israel placed its forces on alert Saturday ahead of the anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 attack, after a military official said the country is preparing its retaliation for Iran’s missile attack.

The alert came with Israel engaged in an intensifying war with the Lebanese Hezbollah group, which army chief Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi said would be hit “without concession or respite”.

Ahead of Monday’s grim anniversary, military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said at a televised briefing: “We are prepared with increased forces in anticipation for this day”, when there could be “attacks on the home front.”

The unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel by the Palestinian group resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.

One year later, although the war in Gaza continues at a lower tempo, Israel has turned its focus north to Lebanon, where it is now at war with Hezbollah, and is focused on the movement’s backer Iran.

The Israeli military said it had killed around 440 Hezbollah fighters “from the ground and from the air” since Monday when troops began “targeted” ground operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Israel says it aims to allow tens of thousands of Israelis displaced by almost a year of Hezbollah rocket fire into northern Israel to return home.

Israel’s President Isaac Herzog called Iran an “ongoing threat” after Tehran, which backs armed groups across the Middle East, on Tuesday launched around 200 missiles at Israel in revenge for Israeli killings of top militant leaders.

‘Duty’ to respond

The missile attack killed one person in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and caused some damage to an Israeli air base according to satellite images.

It came on the day Israeli ground forces began their raids into Lebanon after days of intense strikes on Hezbollah strongholds across Lebanon.

An Israeli military official, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to discuss the issue publicly, said the army “is preparing a response” to Iran’s attack.

Later, Hagari said Israel’s response would come at a “place and time we decide”.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a statement, noted Iran had twice launched “hundreds of missiles” at Israeli territory since April.

“Israel has the duty and the right to defend itself and to respond to these attacks and that is what we will do,” said Netanyahu, whose critics accuse him of obstructing efforts to reach a Gaza ceasefire and deal to free hostages still held by Hamas.

A high-level Hezbollah source said Saturday the group had lost contact with Hashem Safieddine, widely tipped to be the next Hezbollah leader, after air strikes this week in Beirut.

The movement is yet to name a new chief after Israel assassinated Hassan Nasrallah late last month in a massive strike in the Lebanese capital.

Late Saturday Israel issued a new appeal for residents of southern Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold, to evacuate.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Friday said that “the resistance in the region will not back down”.

‘Never-ending’

On Saturday Hezbollah said its fighters were confronting Israeli troops in Lebanon’s southern border region, where the Israeli military said it struck militants inside a mosque in Bint Jbeil.

The military reported frequent rocket fire from Lebanon while Hezbollah claimed a rocket attack on northern Israel’s Ramat David air base, and on a “military industries company” near Israel’s coastal city of Acre.

Hamas said Israeli strikes killed two of its operatives in north and east Lebanon on Saturday, as Israel’s military confirmed the killing of two Hamas figures.

Hamas said one of them was hit near Tripoli, the first such strike in the northern area.

Netanyahu said Israel had “destroyed a large part” of Hezbollah’s arsenal and “changed the course of the war”.

In a March report, the Center for Strategic and International Studies said estimates of Hezbollah’s rockets and missiles varied from 120,000-200,000.

On central Beirut’s busy Hamra Street, Salma Salman said she had been camping out with her seven-year-old twin daughters for nearly two weeks.

“We’re living a terrifying, never-ending nightmare,” she said.

Across Lebanon, the wave of strikes on Hezbollah strongholds has killed more than 1,110 people since September 23, according to a tally based on official figures.

The head of the UN’s refugee agency, Filippo Grandi, said in Lebanon that the country “faces a terrible crisis” and warned “hundreds of thousands of people are left destitute or displaced by Israeli air strikes”.

Israeli bombardment has put at least four hospitals in Lebanon out of service, the facilities said.

The UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said it rejected a request by the Israeli military to “relocate some of our positions” in south Lebanon.

Ireland’s President Michael Higgins, whose country has peacekeepers in the mission, said Israel was “demanding that the entire UNIFIL… walk away”, which he called “an insult to the most important global institution”.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, visiting Damascus on Saturday after a stop in Beirut, renewed his call for ceasefires in both Gaza and Lebanon while threatening Israel with an “even stronger” reaction to any attack on Iran.

French President Emmanuel Macron said it was time “that we stop delivering weapons to fight in Gaza,” adding that France was not providing any.

He also criticised Israel’s decision to send ground troops into Lebanon.

Unhealed wounds

US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators tried unsuccessfully for months to reach a Gaza truce and secure the release of 97 hostages still held in the Hamas-ruled territory.

Medics and rescuers said Israeli fire early Saturday killed at least 12 people across Gaza.

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,825 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures provided by the territory’s health ministry and described as reliable by the UN.

Ahead of the October 7 anniversary, thousands joined pro-Palestinian rallies in London, Paris, Cape Town and other cities.

Herzog, the Israeli president, said his country’s October 7 “wounds still cannot fully heal”.