Israel intercepts a missile from Yemen. Restrictions for residents are being relaxed in the north of the country. All developments in the news blog.
11:46 p.m.: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reaffirmed his country’s will to fight in a video message at the official commemoration of the anniversary of the massacre on October 7th. “Together we will continue to fight, and together – with God’s grace – we will win,” he said in a video message. The ceremony took place in the town of Ofakim near the Gaza Strip, where 40 people were murdered a year ago.
October 7, on which terrorists from the Islamist Hamas and other extremists killed around 1,200 people in Israel and abducted around 250 others to the Gaza Strip a year ago, was “a day of indescribable suffering for the country,” said the conservative politician.
But the Israelis stood together to defend the country. “We have set the war goals and we will achieve them,” he promised. These are: breaking Hamas’ rule, bringing all hostages home, making any future threat from the Gaza Strip impossible and enabling the residents of the south and north to return safely to their homes.
After a year of war with almost 42,000 deaths in the Gaza Strip and growing international criticism of Israel’s harsh actions in the coastal strip, and now also in Lebanon, none of the war goals mentioned by Netanyahu have yet been completely achieved.
9:10 p.m.: Emirates airline has banned pagers and walkie-talkies on its planes. “All passengers traveling to, from or via Dubai are not permitted to carry pagers or walkie-talkies in checked or carry-on baggage,” said a statement on the airline’s website. If such items are found, they will be confiscated by Dubai police, it said.
Numerous pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to the Iranian-allied Shiite militia Hezbollah in Lebanon exploded in September. At least 39 people were killed and around 3,000 were injured, some seriously. The victims were mostly Hezbollah members. But there were also civilian casualties. Read more about this here.
The militia used the cell phone precursors to avoid being tracked by Israel. You can’t make phone calls with pagers, but you can receive messages. According to reports, the Israeli secret service Mossad is said to have manipulated the devices and detonated them.
6.40 p.m.: The Israeli army says it intercepted a surface-to-surface missile fired from Yemen, around 2,000 kilometers away. On the first anniversary of the massacre by gunmen from the Islamist Hamas and other organizations from the Gaza Strip, the sirens wailed for the second time in the center of the country, including the economic metropolis of Tel Aviv.
People who commemorated the around 1,200 people who died in the attack from the Gaza Strip on October 7th last year and the around 250 people who were abducted to the coastal strip at that time also had to run to shelters or lie flat on the ground. This is reported by a dpa reporter from Tel Aviv.
Nothing is initially known about possible victims or damage caused by falling rocket debris. Israel has repeatedly been shot at with rockets and threats from Yemen by the Iran-aligned Houthi militia.
