Middle East: Iran warns of 'crushing response' to Israel, US

The World Health Organization's director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on Saturday that a health care center in northern Gaza came under fire during a polio vaccination drive in the area. 

"We have received an extremely concerning report that the Sheikh Radwan primary health care center in northern Gaza was struck today while parents were bringing their children to the life-saving polio vaccination in an area where a humanitarian pause was agreed to allow vaccination to proceed," Tedros wrote online, quoting a statement from his organization. 

"Six people, including four children, were injured. A WHO team was at the site just before,"  he wrote. 

Tedros said that such events put children at risk and also meant that parents might be deterred from bringing their children for vaccination. 

"These vital humanitarian-area-specific pauses must absolutely be protected," he said. "Cease-fire!" 

Leaders from the rival Palestinian groups Fatah and Hamas are meeting in Cairo to discuss Gaza's possible postwar government, Egyptian officials told state media on Saturday.

The talks are part of Egypt's wider efforts to mediate a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas and allow more humanitarian aid to reach Gaza.

Egyptian officials say the goal is to set up a committee of independent Palestinian leaders not allied to either movement who will determine what Gaza's governance could look like after the withdrawal of Israeli troops.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would not agree to a truce if any members of Hamas are involved in a post-conflict government.

A spokesperson for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said the group was making a renewed push to inoculate children against poliofollowing a small outbreak in northern Gaza.

About 119,000 children in the area are scheduled to receive the necessary second dose of the vaccine in the coming days.

In September, Gaza health officials said they had recorded the first case of the debilitating and sometimes deadly disease in 25 years.

Israel continued its airstrikes in north Gaza on Saturday, a day after the UN called conditions there "apocalyptic" and said all residents were at "imminent risk" of death.

Israel's military on Saturday said dozens of militants were killed around the Jabalia area "in aerial and ground activity."

Israeli forces have been carrying out a major air and ground assault in the region since October 6, saying it is to prevent Hamas militants from regrouping.

As the retaliatory Israeli offensive against Hamas continues, the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip updated its death toll from the war in the Palestinian enclave to at least 43,314.

It said at least 102,019 people have been wounded in the conflict.

The figures, which are considered acceptably accurate by several bodies, including the UN, do not differentiate between militants and civilians.

Israel began its assault in the Gaza Strip after Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 Israelis, mainly civilians, and taking more than 250 hostages. Of these, a number remain in captivity in the enclave, while others have died or have been sent back to Israel in prisoner exchanges.

The Iran-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah said Saturday that it had launched a rocket attack on Israeli "military industries" near the northern city of Haifa.

In a statement, it said it had twice fired "salvos of rockets" at the "the Zvulun base for military industries north of the city of Haifa."

Earlier, it said it had carried out a drone attack on the Palmahim air base, located south of Tel Aviv.

Hezbollah has carried out almost daily drone and rocket attacks on Israel since the start of the war in Gaza. 

At the start of October, Israel started a ground offensive against the group within Lebanon, in addition to carrying out airstrikes on what it says are Hezbollah military sites.

More than 50 people in eastern Lebanon were killed in Israeli strikes on Friday, the Lebanese Health Ministry said, as Israel continues its offensive against the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement.

It said 72 other people were injured in the strikes in 14 different areas in the province of Baalbek-Hermel.

The highest death toll of 12 was recorded in the town of Amhaz.

Eleven people were injured on Saturday when a rocket fired from Lebanon hit a building in the central Israeli town of Tira, the Magen David Adom rescue service said.

It said the wounded had been struck by shrapnel from the projectile.

The Israeli military said altogether three rockets were fired from Lebanon toward central Israel on Saturday morning, with some intercepted.

The Iranian-backed Shiite militia Hezbollah has been striking northern Israel almost daily since Israel began its retaliatory offensive in the Gaza Strip for the Hamas-led terror attacks on October 7, 2023, in which some 1,200 Israelis were killed.

On Thursday, seven people were killed after rockets launched from Lebanon hit northern Israel.

Israel has now begun a ground offensive against the militia after initially responding with airstrikes to the Hezbollah attacks.

The Israeli military has said its forces have "eliminated" two commanders of the Lebanese Iran-backed Hezbollah militia.

Writing on X, formerly Twitter, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the two commanders, Mousa Izz al-Din and Hassan Majid Daib, had been behind the launch of more than 400 projectiles at Israel over the past month, including an attack on the Haifa Bay area on Thursday.

The IDF said the commanders were killed during Israeli strikes in the Tyre region of Lebanon on Friday.

Hezbollah is an Iran-backed political party and militia in Lebanon. Some countries, including the US and Germany, have classified Hezbollah as a terror group while the EU considers only Hezbollah's armed wing to be a terror group.

Initially an overspill from the Gaza conflict, months of trading fire across the joint border between Israel and Lebanon, where Hezbollah is based, escalated into a full conflict in late September.

The supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Saturday once more threatened Israel and the United States with dire consequences for their hostile actions toward Tehran.

"The enemies, whether the Zionist regime or America, will certainly receive a crushing response to what they are doing to Iran and the Iranian nation and to the resistance front," Khamenei, 85, said at an event in Tehran.

"Resistance front" appears to refer to an alliance of Islamist militant groups that support Iran, which include the Lebanese Hezbollah militia and the Palestinian Hamas group.

Khamenei's comments came as Israel braces for possible retaliation for airstrikes it carried out in Iran a week ago.

There have been contradictory statements from Iran about whether its military would respond to the Israeli attacks, which in their turn were described as retaliation for an Iranian missile attack in early October.

tj/kb (Ap, AFP, dpa, Reuters)