According to a report, Israeli attack plans against Iran are becoming more concrete. Israel’s military has apparently discovered an underground Hezbollah center. All developments in the news blog.
4:22 p.m.: Britain is imposing new sanctions on several settler organizations and illegally established outposts because of serious violence by Jewish settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank. British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the settlers had supported and committed “abhorrent human rights violations” in the occupied territories.
During a trip to the West Bank, he met Palestinians who had suffered from “cruel violence” at the hands of settlers. “The Israeli government’s inaction has created a climate of impunity in which settler violence has been able to grow unchecked.” Schools and families with small children are also targets of violence, said Lammy. He called on the Israeli government to stop the spread of settlements in Palestinian territory.
3:38 p.m.: Hezbollah wants to continue to act in support of the Islamist Hamas and not separate its conflict with Israel from the Gaza war. “Lebanon and Palestine cannot be separated,” Hezbollah deputy chief Naim Kassim said in a televised speech. Hezbollah is seeking a ceasefire with Israel. The prerequisite for this and for an end to their shelling is a corresponding agreement in the parallel war in the Gaza Strip.
At the same time, Kassim threatened further attacks by the terrorist group on Israel, which could affect the entire country, especially since Israel, in turn, is attacking throughout Lebanon. “We will target every point in Israel,” Kassim said. “We will attack the enemy army, their bases and their barracks.” The Hezbollah deputy spoke publicly for the third time since Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike in late September. Kassim did not comment on his successor.
3:14 p.m.: SPD parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich has called on Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) to summon the Israeli ambassador Ron Prosor to Berlin because of the Israeli attacks on the UN peacekeeping force Unifil in Lebanon. “I expect the federal government to inform the Israeli ambassador about our position,” he said before the SPD parliamentary group meeting. “That’s why I would also imagine that the federal government would summon the Israeli ambassador to the Foreign Office to discuss this issue.”
2:25 p.m.: According to experts, Israel is threatened with a shortage of interceptor missiles if attacks by Iran or its allies increase. Israel is facing a serious ammunition problem, says expert and former US defense official Dana Stroul in the Financial Times. If Iran responds to a possible Israeli attack with heavy air strikes and joins Hezbollah in Lebanon, Israel’s air defenses could be “overwhelmed.”
The US government announced at the weekend that it would send a battery of the state-of-the-art THAAD missile defense system and an associated American military team to Israel. The aim is to strengthen Israel’s air defense after the recent heavy missile attacks by Iran. But the supplies of the USA, Israel’s most important ally, are also limited, Stroul tells the newspaper. “The US cannot continue to supply Ukraine and Israel at the same pace. We are reaching a tipping point.”
Israel has a multi-tiered missile defense system that has so far blocked the majority of drones and missiles from Iran and its proxies in the region. The Financial Times quotes Israeli military expert Assaf Orion as saying that Hezbollah has not yet used its full capabilities in its attacks. Ehud Eilam, a former Israeli Defense Ministry official, says it is only a “matter of time before Israel runs out of interceptor missiles and has to prioritize how they are used.”
2:11 p.m.: According to authorities, a police officer was killed in an attack in Israel. Four other people were injured, the police said in a statement. According to reports, the attacker opened fire on drivers on a highway south of Tel Aviv. He was then shot himself by a civilian.