Attack on central Israel injures 11 as Iran’s leader promises a punishing response

JERUSALEM (AP) — An attack on a central Israeli town early Saturday injured 11 people as Iran’s supreme leader vowed a punishing response to Israel’s attack last week and Israeli airstrikes continued in Gaza and Lebanon.

The predawn strike on Tira was one of several barrages fired from Lebanon. Many of the projectiles were intercepted by Israeli air defenses as air raid sirens rang out in parts of the country throughout the day, while others landed in unpopulated areas.

The Magen David Adom emergency service said 11 people were hurt by shrapnel and glass shards in a direct strike on a building in Tira, a predominantly Israeli Arab town. Footage showed significant damage to the roof and top floor of the three-story building and cars below.

Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group said Saturday that it had used missiles and explosive drones to target military and intelligence facilities in northern and central Israel.

It claimed responsibility for firing missiles toward the Israeli military’s Unit 8200 base in Glilot, on the edge of Tel Aviv, and for firing rockets toward military facilities in Zvulun. Hezbollah also said it had targeted central Israel’s Palmachim Air Base with explosive drones, saying they “scored precise hits on targets.”

Israel’s military did not confirm whether any of the three Hezbollah targets had been hit and said it had no comment on the group’s claims.

Hezbollah said the Saturday dawn missile attack directed at Glilot was in retaliation for the “massacres” that are being committed by Israel. Tira, is about 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) from Glilot.

Tamar Abdel Hai, a resident of Tira, said that the attack was frightening. “I call upon all the leaders in the Arab world and the leaders in Israel and to everyone who can help to end this war. It’s enough,” he said.

Hezbollah also said that its fighters fired salvos of rockets into northern Israeli towns including Dalton, Yesud HaMa’ala and Bar Yohai.

Israeli media showed images of damage reportedly caused by a drone that hit a factory north of Nahariya. The army said several drones crossed from Lebanon into Israel, one was intercepted but “fallen targets were identified in the area.”

Meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike on a southern suburb of Beirut on Saturday afternoon killed one person and wounded 15 others, the Lebanese Health Ministry said. Israeli planes resumed strikes on the southern suburb of Dahiyeh overnight Friday, following a four-day lull in the capital.

In a separate incident, a Lebanese ship captain was seized by armed men who landed on the coast of Batroun, north of Beirut, Lebanese authorities said.

The Israeli military later confirmed it had captured the man, which it described as a senior Hezbollah operative in north Lebanon. It did not name the detainee and said he was being investigated on Israeli territory.

Iran threatens more attacks

The early Saturday attacks may be only a precursor to a more severe strike against Israel.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, on Saturday threatened Israel and the U.S. with a punishing response over attacks on Iran and its allies following Israel’s Oct. 26 airstrikes that targeted Iran’s military bases and other locations.

“The enemies, whether the Zionist regime or the United States of America, will definitely receive a crushing response to what they are doing to Iran and the Iranian nation and to the resistance front,” Khamenei said in a video released by Iranian state media.

A further attack by Iran, which has already launched two direct attacks against Israel this year, could push the wider Middle East closer to a broader conflict. Israel is already battling the Iran-backed militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The fight against Hezbollah has weakened the group but has also taken a heavy toll on southern Lebanon and other parts of the country.

On Friday, Israel launched dozens of intense airstrikes across Lebanon’s northeastern farming villages, killing at least 52 people and wounding scores more, the Lebanese Health Ministry reported.

Since the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah erupted in 2023, more than 2,897 people have been killed and 13,150 wounded in Lebanon, according to a Health Ministry update early Friday. United Nations agencies estimate that Israel’s ground invasion and bombardment of Lebanon has displaced 1.4 million people.

Residents of Israel’s northern communities near Lebanon, roughly 60,000 people, have also been displaced for more than a year.

Israeli strikes in Gaza kill at least 42 people in 24 hours

In recent weeks, Israel has also stepped up its offensive against Hamas’ remaining fighters in Gaza, raising concerns about humanitarian conditions for civilians still there.

A series of Israeli strikes on Nuseirat, a refugee camp in central Gaza, killed at least 42 people, more than half of them women and children, in 24 hours, Dr. Marwan Abu Naser, director of Al-Awda Hospital that received the casualties, told The Associated Press. A further 150 were wounded, he said.

Later on Saturday, an Israeli airstrike on a street in the nearby Bureij refugee camp killed at least six people, medical officials said. The dead were taken to al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in the nearby city of Deir al-Balah and counted by AP journalists there.

Separately, the Israeli military said that two of its soldiers were killed in southern Gaza.

Egypt’s state-owned Al-Qahera News TV reported Saturday that Hamas has rejected a partial cease-fire deal in Gaza fearing that Israel will resume its operations in the enclave even after hostages are released. The TV channel has close ties to the Egyptian intelligence service and Egypt has been a key mediator throughout the yearlong conflict.

Hours later, senior Hamas official Izzat al-Rishq criticized the temporary cease-fire proposal describing it as “just a smoke screen.” Hamas has continually called for a complete end to the conflict and a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza as a condition for any cease-fire deal with Israel.

Meanwhile, The World Health Organization began a scaled-down polio vaccination campaign on Saturday, giving second doses to at-risk children only in Gaza City after providing first doses in multiple parts of northern Gaza, which has seen intense Israeli bombardment.

Israel’s war in Gaza has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas militants killed roughly 1,200 people in Israel and took some 250 hostages back to Gaza. Health officials inside Hamas-run Gaza do not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but say more than half of the dead in the enclave are women and children.

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Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press journalists Bassem Mroue in Beirut, Natalie Melzer in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Shlomo Mor in Tira, Israel, contributed to this report.

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Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

Adam Schreck And Samy Magdy, The Associated Press