Israel’s attack on Iran was, in the words of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, “precise and powerful,” as Iranian leaders weighed a possible response.
Netanyahu stated that the attack “achieved all its objectives,” during a speech at a memorial event on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem for the victims of the Hamas massacre on October 7 last year.
Netanyahu said Israel is in an existential struggle against an “Axis of Evil” led by Iran. He asserted that Israel’s enemies must pay a “very high price.” Iran, he said, attacked Israel with hundreds of ballistic missiles at the beginning of the month. “This attack failed.”
Israel then responded in the early hours of Saturday, Netanyahu said. The air force targeted numerous sites in Iran. “We severely damaged Iran’s defence capabilities, as well as their ability to manufacture missiles that are directed against us.”
He thanked the United States for “their close coordination and support.”
Netanyahu addressed the Iranian people directly: “Our fight is not against you, but against the tyrannical regime that oppresses you and threatens the entire region.
We can do much more, vows Israeli head of general staff
Meanwhile Israel’s Chief of the General Staff, Herzi Halevi, noted that the Israeli military used only a portion of its capabilities in the latest attack on targets in Iran.
“We drew upon only some of our abilities. We have the ability to do much more,” Halevi said at an assessment at military headquarters in Tel Aviv.
“We hit strategic systems in Iran…and we will see how things develop now. We are ready for all scenarios on all fronts,” he added.
“Our message is a very clear message, and it is connected to the things that have happened across the Middle East in recent months. We know how to reach and hit any threat, in any place, at any time,” Halevi asserted.
Iran discusses retaliation
The Iranian parliament on Sunday convened for a meeting behind closed doors to discuss a response to the Israeli attack.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has called for a considered approach. “How the strength and will of the Iranian people should be made clear to [Israel] is for those responsible to decide,” Khamenei said on Sunday at an event in the capital Tehran, according to the state news agency IRNA.
“What should be done is what is in the best interests of this people and country,” the 85-year-old religious leader said.
Fifth person killed in Israel strikes on Iran identified
The number of people killed in the Israeli attack on targets in Iran has reportedly risen to five.
On Sunday, Iranian media unanimously reported the death of a civilian in the airstrikes, citing an organization that works with casualties of war.
He was reportedly in a suburb south-west of the capital Tehran at the time of the attack.
According to officials, four soldiers were killed in the Israeli attack, and several military sites, such as radar installations, were damaged.
One dead after lorry drives into group north of Tel Aviv
Around 40 people were injured, one of them fatally, after a lorry crashed into a crowd of people waiting at a bus stop north of Tel Aviv on Sunday.
According to paramedics, several people suffered serious injuries. One man died of his injuries in hospital.
Media reports said that the driver, who came from an Arab town in Israel, was shot by passers-by. The incident took place near a military base.
Police reportedly assumed at first that it was an attack. However, officials later announced that the circumstances of the incident were still being investigated.
Shortly after the incident near Tel Aviv, the army announced that a Palestinian attempted to ram soldiers at a military checkpoint in the West Bank with his car and attack them with a knife. The driver was shot dead. None of the soldiers were injured.
Fighting between Israel and Hezbollah continues
Meanwhile, the Iran-backed Hezbollah continued its bombardment of Israel, firing about 90 projectiles at the Jewish state, the Israeli army stated late on Sunday evening.
Four more Israeli soldiers have been killed in clashes with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, the army said on Sunday, adding that five additional soldiers were wounded and taken to hospital. Hezbollah has to date fired around 14,000 rockets at Israel, the army said. Israel has responded with almost daily massive airstrikes and, since September, with a ground offensive.
An Israeli airstrike hit the Lebanese town of Haret Saida near the southern port city of Sidon on Sunday, killing eight people including a child, and wounding 25, the state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported. The home of a Hezbollah member was targeted, a resident in the area told dpa. At least two rockets hit the apartment in the three-storey building, the resident said.
At least 21 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes in the south throughout Sunday, Lebanese authorities said. Since the outbreak of fighting more than a year ago, a total of at least 2,672 people have been killed and 12,468 others have been wounded, the health ministry in Beirut announced. The number of rescue workers and health sector employees killed in Israeli attacks has risen to 168, with 275 injured, the ministry reported.
