Important Takeaways:
- Many Arab nations such as Jordan and the United Arab Emirates host U.S. bases and oil facilities vital to the world economy, and Iran’s warning about helping Israel is raising fears in the region that these sites could become targets.
- Both Hamas and Hezbollah are backed by Tehran, and Pezeshkian has portrayed Iran as “exercising restraint” because it waited for two months after Haniyeh’s death before attacking Israel.
- In Gaza and Lebanon, people were counting the cost of Israeli strikes. At least 22 people were killed and 117 injured in overnight attacks on Beirut, the Lebanese capital, according to the country’s health ministry.
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Important Takeaways:
- The region has been tensely awaiting a promised Israeli reprisal for an October 1 massive ballistic missile attack by Iran, with Washington attempting to coordinate and temper Israel’s reaction.
- “There were no big decisions” made by ministers, an Israeli source told The Times of Israel, adding “There is a desire from the Israelis to coordinate with the Americans” over the response, and that strategic discussions continue between the sides.
- The Prime Minister’s Office also told The Times of Israel that Gallant’s trip to the US to discuss Israel’s response has yet to be approved
- Jerusalem has pledged a significant retaliation, but Biden — who directed US forces to help thwart the Iranian attack — has expressed opposition to targeting Iran’s nuclear or oil production sites.
- Tehran said to threaten West’s Arab allies if they assist Israeli strike
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Important Takeaways:
- Hezbollah is preparing for a long war of attrition in south Lebanon, after Israel wiped out its top leadership, with a new military command directing rocket fire and the ground conflict, two sources familiar with its operations said.
- Hezbollah has been diminished by three weeks of devastating Israeli blows – most notably the killing of its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.
- Friends and foes alike are now watching how effectively it resists Israeli troops that have crossed into Lebanon with the stated aim of driving it away from the border.
- The Iran-backed group still has a considerable stockpile of weapons, including its most powerful precision missiles which it has yet to use, four sources familiar with its operations said, despite waves of airstrikes that Israel says has severely depleted its arsenal.
- “The fact that the chain of command has been damaged does not take away the ability to shoot Israeli communities or try to hit” Israeli forces, Levine told Reuters, describing Hezbollah as “the same powerful terror army we all know.”
- A statement this week signed by the “operations room of the Islamic Resistance” said fighters were resisting incursions and “watching and listening” to Israeli troops where they least expect it – an apparent reference to concealed Hezbollah positions.
- Israel says it aims to secure the return of tens of thousands of people who evacuated northern Israel after Hezbollah began firing rockets a year ago in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza.
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Important Takeaways:
- United Nations investigators have accused Israel of deliberately targeting Gaza’s health facilities and killing medical personnel during its war on the besieged enclave
- A statement by ex-UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay released on Thursday in advance of a full report accused Israel of “committing war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination with relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities” in its assault on Gaza
- “Children in particular have borne the brunt of these attacks, suffering both directly and indirectly from the collapse of the health system,” said Pillay, whose report will be presented to the UN General Assembly on October 30.
- The Israeli government has routinely said that its attacks on hospitals and schools in Gaza are to target members of Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups.
- Hamas has denied it uses the locations as command centers.
- The COI said the “institutional mistreatment” of Palestinians was under direct order from far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
- Israel did not cooperate with the inquiry after arguing it had an “anti-Israel” bias.
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Important Takeaways:
- Hezbollah is still without a new leader, nearly two weeks after its long-serving chief was killed in an Israeli strike and with its deputy head apparently unwilling to step into the role.
- Hezbollah’s deputy leader Sheikh Naim Qassem—currently considered the organization’s top official—said in a video address streamed by Iranian news outlet Press TV on Tuesday that a new leader would be elected, suggesting he would not take up the mantle
- Dahiyeh is described by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) as Hezbollah’s nerve center and de-facto base, and has come under heavy Israeli bombardment in recent weeks.
- Hezbollah has many branches and commanders at varying levels, many of whom Israel has said it has killed.
- Israel had reportedly targeted Safieddine late last week, but there had been no confirmation whether he had been killed.
- As well as Nasrallah and Safieddine, other leading Hezbollah figures reported to have been killed include Ali Karaki, Ibrahim Aqeel and Fu’ad Shakar.
- On Tuesday, Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant said during a visit to Israel’s northern border with Lebanon that Hezbollah “is an organization without a head,” adding that “Nasrallah was eliminated, his replacement was probably also eliminated.”
- On Tuesday, the IDF said it had killed Suhail Hussein Husseini, described by the Israeli military as the commander of Hezbollah’s headquarters in Beirut.
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Important Takeaways:
- The call, under way late Wednesday morning U.S. time, was the leaders’ first known chat since August and coincided with a sharp escalation of Israel’s conflict with both Iran and the Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah with no sign of an imminent ceasefire to end the conflict with Iran-backed Hamas in Gaza.
- The Middle East has been on edge awaiting Israel’s response to a missile attack last week that Tehran carried out in retaliation for Israel’s military escalation in Lebanon.
- The Iranian attack ultimately killed no one in Israel and Washington called it ineffective.
- Netanyahu has promised that arch-foe Iran will pay for its missile attack, while Tehran has said any retaliation would be met with vast destruction, raising fears of a wider war in the oil-producing region which could draw in the United States.
- Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant canceled a Wednesday visit to the Pentagon, the Pentagon said, as Israeli media reported Netanyahu wanted first to speak with Biden.
- Israel has faced calls by the United States and other allies to accept a ceasefire deal in Gaza and Lebanon but has said it will continue its military operations until Israelis are safe.
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Important Takeaways:
- US officials tell Axios that the Biden administration is increasingly distrustful of what Israel is saying about its military and diplomatic plans.
- Two of the officials tell the outlet that White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer on Friday that the US expects “clarity and transparency” from Israel over its plans for a potential attack on Iran after Tehran fired some 200 ballistic missiles at Israel last week.
- The officials note that any Israel strike would have an impact on US forces in the region.
- An official says that Sullivan’s message was a signal that if the US is not given a heads-up as to Israel’s plans, it won’t necessarily join a coalition to defend Israel against a potential future attack from Iran.
- The report says the US is also concerned about the most recent operation launched by the IDF in north Gaza, despite the fact that Israel has told Washington that the evacuation orders for civilians there will not lead to a permanent displacement of the population.
- “They tell us what we want to hear — the problem is lack of trust,” a US official says.
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Important Takeaways:
- Hezbollah pelted Haifa with rockets on Tuesday in the heaviest attack yet on the northern Israeli port city, as the Lebanese terror group insisted its military capabilities “were fine” despites weeks of devastating IDF strikes.
- More than 100 rockets were fired at the city within half an hour around midday.
- Most of the rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome system, although some got through, exploding in the Haifa suburbs of Kiryat Yam and Kiryat Motzkin, security services said.
- The blue skies above the city were filled with white trails of the interceptor rockets rising to meet the incoming barrages, and explosions mushroomed above Haifa as sirens wailed and thousands of Israelis ran for bomb shelters.
- The salvos came as the IDF announced that it was carrying out strikes against Hezbollah targets in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
- The large-scale attack also came moments after Hezbollah deputy leader Naim Qassem, one of the last surviving members of the group’s top leadership, insisted that Hezbollah’s military capabilities were intact, that it had increased its rocket fire on Israel, and that it was itching for “clashes” with Israeli troops in Lebanon.
- He said Hezbollah’s top leadership was directing the war and that the commanders killed by Israel had been replaced. “We have no vacant posts,” he added.
- Qassem also said that Hezbollah supports efforts to reach a ceasefire for Lebanon, but for the first time omitted any mention of a Gaza truce deal as a precondition to halting his group’s fire on Israel.
- “In any case, after the issue of a ceasefire takes shape, and once diplomacy can achieve it, all of the other details can be discussed and decisions can be made,” he said. “If the enemy (Israel) continues its war, then the battlefield will decide.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel’s third largest city Haifa on Monday as Israeli forces looked poised to expand ground raids into south Lebanon on the first anniversary of the Gaza war, which has spread conflict across the Middle East.
- Iran-backed Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, the Palestinian militant group fighting Israel in Gaza, said it targeted a military base south of Haifa with “Fadi 1” missiles and launched another strike on Tiberias, 65 km (40 miles) away.
- Hezbollah said it targeted areas north of Haifa in a second salvo of missiles later in the day.
- The military said the air force was carrying out extensive bombings of Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon, and that two Israeli soldiers were killed in border-area combat, taking the military death toll inside Lebanon so far to 11.
- It said it also carried out a targeted strike in Beirut’s southern suburbs, where a thick plume of smoke could be seen.
- The spiraling conflict has raised concerns that the United States, Israel’s superpower ally, and Iran will be sucked into a wider war in the oil-producing Middle East.
- The Gaza war has given rise to a multi-front Middle East conflict, drawing in Iran’s broader “Axis of Resistance” – Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis, Iraqi militia groups – and sparking several rare, direct confrontations between Israel and Iran.
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Important Takeaways:
- ‘The pain will never leave’: Nova massacre survivors return to site one year on
- As mourners gathered at the site of the Nova music festival to commemorate the victims of Hamas’s attack one year ago, low sobs and murmured prayers were punctuated by the sound of artillery being fired by soldiers into nearby Gaza.
- Relatives gathered around the homemade memorials to the estimated 365 people killed at the festival on that day in 2023, while attack helicopters whirred overhead and occasionally let loose bursts of automatic gunfire toward Gaza, only three miles away from the festival site in Re’im, southern Israel.
- Police had before the ceremony warned attenders that if they heard a siren, they had just seconds to drop to the ground before a rocket from Hamas could hit.
- “Many relatives still come here to try to hug the ground and feel the warmth that remains from their relatives. It’s a pain that will never leave them.”
- Noa Tishby, an Israeli activist and actor, said the Nova site was “where the juxtaposition between good and evil is most apparent”. “That’s really close,” she said, as another artillery round was fired off toward Gaza.
- Many of the families said they strongly supported the Israeli response in Gaza. Few could predict how or when the war would end.
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