Attack in central Israel wounds 11 as Iran’s leader vows punitive response

JERUSALEM (AP) — An attack on a central Israeli city early Saturday injured 11 people as Iran’s Supreme Leader vowed a harsh response to an Israeli attack last week.

The pre-dawn strike on Tire, which followed air raid sirens over central Israel, was one of several attacks fired from Lebanon earlier in the day. Many of the shells were intercepted by Israeli air defenses, while others fell in deserted areas.

The Magen David Adom emergency service said 11 people were injured by shrapnel and glass shards when a building was hit directly in Tire, a predominantly Israeli-Arab city. Three of them were in moderate condition, the rest received minor injuries.

The footage shows extensive damage to the roof and top floor of the three-story building, as well as to the cars below.

Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon claimed responsibility for firing rockets at the Israeli military base in Glilot on the outskirts of Tel Aviv and for attacking the Palmachim airbase in central Israel with explosive drones, saying they “achieved accurate hits on targets.”

The Israeli military has not confirmed that any base was attacked or struck.

Hezbollah said the rocket attack on Glilot at dawn on Saturday was in response to “massacres” carried out by Israel. It is likely that this statement was related to the strike on Thira, which is located approximately 20 kilometers (11 miles) from Glilot.

Tamar Abdel Hai, a Tira resident, said the attack was frightening. “I call on all the leaders of the Arab world and the leaders of Israel, as well as everyone who can help end this war. That’s enough,” he said.

Hezbollah also said its fighters fired rockets at northern Israeli towns including Dalton, Yesud HaMaala and Bar Yohai.

The early Saturday morning attacks could be just a harbinger of a more serious blow to Israel.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday threatened Israel and the United States with a punitive response for attacks on Iran and its allies following Israel’s actions. 26 October airstrikes the target of which was Iranian military bases and other facilities.

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

A further attack by Iran, which has already launched two direct attacks on Israel this year, could push the entire Middle East into wider conflict. Israel is already fighting an Iran-backed militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The fight against Hezbollah has weakened the group, but it has also brought heavy casualties in southern Lebanon and other parts of the country.

Israel launched dozens of intense attacks on Friday. airstrikes on Lebanese territory northeastern farming villages, killing at least 52 people and injuring many more, Lebanon’s health ministry said.

More than 2,897 people have been killed and 13,150 wounded in Lebanon since the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah began in 2023, according to a Health Ministry report issued early Friday. UN agencies estimate that Israel’s ground invasion and bombing of Lebanon led to 1.4 million people displaced.

Residents of Israel’s northern communities near Lebanon, about 60,000 people, were also quit for more than a year.

Israel also stepped up its offensive against Remaining Hamas fighters in the Gaza Stripraising concerns about humanitarian conditions for civilians still there. The World Health Organization said it plans to finally resume its polio vaccination campaign on Saturday, but only in Gaza City as cities further north remain inaccessible as Israel tightens its siege.

Israel’s war in Gaza led to killed more than 43,000 Palestinians since October 7, 2023, when Hamas militants killed about 1,200 people in Israel and took about 250 hostages back to Gaza. Health officials in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip don’t discriminate between civilians and combatants, but more than half of those killed in the enclave are said to be women and children.

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Associated Press journalists Bassem Mrou in Beirut, Natalie Meltzer in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Shlomo Mor in Tire, Israel, contributed to this report.

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