US President Joe Biden has said he hopes Iran will back down from threats of retaliation against Israel to avert a serious war in the Middle East.
Tensions are rising in the region after Hamas’s top political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Iran’s capital, Tehran.
Iran has pledged to avenge his death, with its proxies already escalating attacks against Israel. Hamas and Iran both accuse Israel of carrying out the killing.
The assassination came a day after the Israeli military claimed to have killed a senior commander of Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in Beirut.
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It seems inevitable assassinations will expand war zone
L: Israel’s Iron Dome targeting Hezbollah rockets. R: Joe Biden answers questions in Greenville, Delaware. Pics: AP
As Iran continues to threaten a retaliatory strike against Israel, the US president was asked if he thought there was a chance they would stand down.
Mr Biden said in response: “I hope so. I don’t know.”
President Joe Biden on 2 August outside the White House before travelling to Delaware, where he spoke to reporters. Pic: Reuters
Hezbollah rockets fired
Hezbollah fired around 50 rockets from Lebanon towards upper Galilee overnight.
Videos showed Israel’s Iron Dome defence system being activated over Israel early on Sunday.
In a statement claiming responsibility for the rocket attack, Hezbollah made clear it wasn’t in response to the assassination of their senior commander.
The group said the barrage was a response to Israeli strikes which killed civilians in two villages in the south of Lebanon.
The Israeli Iron Dome air defence system fires to intercept an attack from Lebanon over the Galilee region. Pic: AP
Hezbollah’s statement read: “In support of our steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and in support of their valiant and honourable resistance, and in response to the Israeli enemy’s attacks on the steadfast southern villages and safe homes, especially the attacks that targeted the villages of Kafr Kila and Deir Siryan and injured civilians, the Islamic Resistance included the new settlement of Beit Hillel in its fire schedule and bombarded it for the first time with dozens of Katyusha rockets.”
Israel is yet to comment on the attack.
It comes after the Pentagon said on Friday it would deploy additional fighter jets and Navy warships to the Middle East, and after US and UK officials told its nationals to leave Lebanon.
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Airstrikes hit Gaza and West Bank
Before Hezbollah fired its rockets, an Israeli airstrike on a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza City killed at least 15 people on Saturday, according to local health officials.
That followed two strikes in the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli military said the first of the West Bank airstrikes hit a vehicle in a town near the city of Tulkarm, targeting a militant cell it said was on its way to carry out an attack.
Five people were killed. A Hamas statement said one of those killed was a commander of its Tulkarm brigades, while its ally Islamic Jihad claimed the other four men who died in the strike as its fighters.
Hours later, a second airstrike in the area targeted another group of militants who had fired on troops, Israel’s military said, during what it described as a counterterrorism operation. Palestinian news agency WAFA said four people had died in that strike.
Hamas said all nine of those killed in the two Israeli attacks in the West Bank were fighters.
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Explosion interrupts Sky interview in Gaza
At least 39,550 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli military campaign in Gaza, according to Gaza health officials.
Hamas attacked southern Israel on 7 October, killing around 1,200 people and abducting 250, according to Israeli tallies.