Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the southern Lebanese village of Khiam near the border with Israel on 2 October. (Photo: AFP) 
Israel said on Wednesday eight of its soldiers were killed in combat in south Lebanon as its forces thrust into its northern neighbour in a campaign against the Hezbollah armed group.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian warned of a strong response from Tehran to any further Israeli actions against it and sought to rally Asian countries to its side as he visited Qatar on Wednesday.
Israel bars UN secretary-general from entering the country
Israel’s foreign minister said on Wednesday that he was barring UN Secretary-General António Guterres from entering the country because he had not “unequivocally” condemned Iran’s missile attack on Israel.
Iran fired more than 180 ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday amid an escalation in fighting between Israel and its proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah. Many were intercepted in flight but some penetrated missile defences.
Guterres on Tuesday issued a brief statement after the missile attack condemning “the broadening of the Middle East conflict, with escalation after escalation”. Earlier on Tuesday, Israel had sent troops into southern Lebanon.
Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz said Guterres’ failure to call out Iran made him persona non grata in Israel.
“Anyone who cannot unequivocally condemn Iran’s heinous attack on Israel, as nearly all the countries of the world have done, does not deserve to set foot on Israeli soil,” said Katz.
Asked about the move at a press briefing, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said: “Steps like these are not productive to [Israel] improving its standing in the world.
“The UN does incredibly important work in Gaza. It does incredibly important work in the region. And the UN, when it’s acting at its best, can play an important role for security and stability.”
UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric described the announcement as political and “just one more attack, so to speak, on UN staff that we’ve seen from the government of Israel”. He said the UN traditionally did not recognise the concept of persona non grata as applying to UN staff.
During a Security Council meeting on Wednesday, Guterres said: “As I did in relation to the Iranian attack in April — and as should have been obvious yesterday in the context of the condemnation I expressed — I again strongly condemn yesterday’s massive missile attack by Iran on Israel.”
Eight Israeli soldiers killed in clashes with Hezbollah in Lebanon
Israel said on Wednesday eight of its soldiers were killed in combat in south Lebanon as its forces thrust into its northern neighbour in a campaign against the Hezbollah armed group.
The losses were the deadliest suffered by the Israeli military on the Lebanon front in the past year of border-area clashes between Israel and its Iranian-backed Lebanese foe.
Hezbollah said its fighters were engaging Israeli forces inside Lebanon on Wednesday, reporting ground clashes for the first time since Israeli forces pushed over the border. Hezbollah said it had destroyed three Israeli Merkava tanks with rockets near the border town of Maroun El Ras.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a condolence video, said: “We are at the height of a difficult war against Iran’s Axis of Evil, which wants to destroy us.
“This will not happen because we will stand together and with God’s help, we will win together,” he said.
The Israeli military said regular infantry and armoured units were joining its ground operations in Lebanon, a day after Iran fired more than 180 missiles into Israel, a barrage which raised concerns that the oil-producing Middle East could be caught up in a wider conflict.
Iran said on Wednesday its missile volley — its biggest assault on Israel — was over, barring further provocation, but Israel and the US promised to hit back hard.
A 38-year-old Palestinian from Gaza, the only known fatality in Iran’s attack on Israel, was buried on Wednesday.
Sameh Khadr Hassan Al-Asali had been staying in a Palestinian security forces compound in the West Bank when he was killed by falling missile debris during Tuesday’s attack, which Israel said was largely foiled by its air defence systems.
Hezbollah said it had repelled Israeli forces near several border towns and also fired rockets at military posts inside Israel.
The paramilitary group’s media chief, Mohammad Afif, said those battles were only “the first round” and that Hezbollah had enough fighters, weapons and ammunition to push Israel back.
Israel’s addition of infantry and armoured troops from the 36th Division, including the Golani Brigade, the 188th Armoured Brigade and the 6th Infantry Brigade, suggested that the operation might expand beyond limited commando raids.
The military has said its incursion is largely aimed at destroying tunnels and other infrastructure on the border and there were no plans for a wider operation targeting the Lebanese capital, Beirut, to the north or major cities in the south.
Nevertheless, it issued new evacuation orders for around two dozen towns along the southern border, instructing inhabitants to head north of the Awali River, which flows east to west some 60km north of the Israeli frontier.
Israel renewed its bombardment early on Wednesday of Beirut’s southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has its headquarters, with more than a dozen airstrikes against what it said were targets belonging to Hezbollah.
Israel also carried out an airstrike on a residential building in the Mezzah suburb in the west of Syria’s capital Damascus, killing three civilians and injuring three, Syrian state media reported on Wednesday. Israel has been carrying out strikes on Iran-linked targets in Syria for years.
More than 1,900 people have been killed and over 9,000 wounded in Lebanon in almost a year of cross-border fighting, with most of the deaths occurring in the past two weeks, according to Lebanese government statistics.
Iran described Tuesday’s missile assault as a response to Israeli killings of militant leaders, including Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, attacks in Lebanon against the group and Israel’s war against the Palestinian Hamas group in Gaza.
The general staff of Iran’s armed forces said any Israeli response would be met with “vast destruction”.
US news website Axios on Wednesday cited Israeli officials as saying Israel would launch a “significant retaliation” for Iran’s attack within days that could strike oil production facilities inside Iran and other strategic sites.
US President Joe Biden’s administration was seeking to align its position with close ally Israel on any potential response to Iran’s attack, but also recognised the Middle East was on a “knife’s edge” and a broader escalation could imperil both Israeli and US interests, US Deputy Secretary Kurt Campbell told an event hosted by a Washington think-tank on Wednesday.
On social media, Iranians were apprehensive about Israeli reprisals and said past wars, such as the eight-year conflict with Iraq in the 1980s that killed about one million people, would only bring more suffering.
“The destruction of generations, young people being cannon fodder, the enrichment of generals and elites, and the empowerment of extremists? Leaders will not pay for dragging Iran into war,” said Nima Mokhtarian, who works at an NGO.
Iranian president aims to rally opposition to Israel's ‘crimes’
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian warned of a strong response from Tehran to any further Israeli actions against it and sought to rally Asian countries to its side as he visited Qatar on Wednesday.
Pezeshkian arrived in Qatar a day after Iran fired waves of ballistic missiles at Israel, and Israel stepped up its war with Tehran’s proxy Hezbollah by sending troops over the border into Lebanon.
“If the Zionist regime [Israel] does not stop its crimes, it will face harsher reactions,” Pezeshkian said as he left for the trip, reported Iranian state media.
He reiterated this later at a joint press conference in Doha with Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, saying that if Israel acted in one way against Iran then Tehran would respond more severely.
Pezeshkian also criticised Israel over the killing of the leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, on 31 July. Iran blames Israel for the assassination but Israel has neither claimed nor denied responsibility.
Israel has since assassinated the leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hassan Nasrallah, and struck at Lebanon.
“We also want security and peace. It was Israel that assassinated Haniyeh in Tehran,” Pezeshkian was quoted as saying on his arrival in Qatar by Iran’s Student News Network.
The Qatari emir told the press conference that Doha would continue its mediation efforts to end the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, now nearly a year old. Qatar and other international mediators have been working on a ceasefire agreement for Gaza, but the talks have stalled.
The Iranian president will also attend a summit of the Asia Cooperation Dialogue nations in Doha.
He told Iranian state television he wanted to discuss “how Asian countries can prevent Israeli crimes in the region … and prevent enemies from causing uproar in the Middle East”.
G7 leaders still hopeful for diplomatic solution in Middle East
Group of Seven (G7) leaders expressed “strong concern” on Wednesday over the crisis in the Middle East but said a diplomatic solution was still viable and a region-wide conflict was in no one’s interest, a statement said.
Italy holds the rotating presidency of the club of major Western economies and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni hosted a leaders’ call a day after Iran launched a barrage of missiles at Israel, heightening fears of regional war.
An Italian government statement said the leaders condemned Tehran’s attack and agreed to “work jointly to promote a reduction in regional tensions”.
The statement referred to the implementation of UN resolutions 2735 — backing a three-phase plan for a Gaza ceasefire and the release of hostages held by Hamas — and 1701, which halted the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war in south Lebanon.
“Expressing strong concern over the escalation in recent hours, it was reiterated that a region-wide conflict is in no one’s interest and that a diplomatic solution is still possible,” it added.
Along with Italy, the G7 comprises the US, Canada, Britain, France, Germany and Japan.
Iran’s Khamenei ‘warned Nasrallah of Israeli plot to kill him’
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned Nasrallah to flee Lebanon days before he was killed in an Israeli strike and was now deeply worried about Israeli infiltration of senior government ranks in Tehran, three Iranian sources said.
In the immediate aftermath of the attack on Hezbollah’s booby-trapped pagers on 17 September, Khamenei sent a message with an envoy to beseech the Hezbollah secretary-general to leave for Iran, citing intelligence reports that suggested Israel had operatives within Hezbollah and was planning to kill him, one of the sources, a senior Iranian official, told Reuters.
The messenger, the official said, was a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander, Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan, who was with Nasrallah in his bunker when it was hit by Israeli bombs and was also killed.
Khamenei, who has remained in a secure location inside Iran since Saturday, personally ordered a barrage of around 200 missiles to be fired at Israel on Tuesday, said a senior Iranian official. The attack was retaliation for the deaths of Nasrallah and Nilforoushan, said the Revolutionary Guards.
The statement also cited the July killing of Hamas leader Haniyeh in Tehran and Israel’s attacks on Lebanon. Israel has not claimed responsibility for Haniyeh’s death.
Nasrallah’s assassination followed two weeks of precise Israeli strikes that have destroyed weapons sites, eliminated half of Hezbollah’s leadership council and decimated its top military command.
Iran’s fears for the safety of Khamenei and the loss of trust, within both Hezbollah and Iran’s establishment and between them, emerged in the conversations with 10 sources for this story, who described a situation that could complicate the effective functioning of Iran’s Axis of Resistance alliance of anti-Israel irregular armed groups.
The disarray is also making it hard for Hezbollah to choose a new leader, fearing the ongoing infiltration will put the successor at risk, four Lebanese sources said.
“Basically, Iran lost the biggest investment it had for the past decades,” said Magnus Ranstorp, a Hezbollah expert at the Swedish Defence University, of the deep damage caused to Hezbollah that he said diminished Iran’s capacity to strike at Israel’s borders.
“It shook Iran to the core. It shows how Iran is deeply infiltrated also: they not only killed Nasrallah, they killed Nilforoushan,” he said, who was a trusted military adviser to Khamenei.
Nasrallah’s death has prompted Iranian authorities to thoroughly investigate possible infiltrations within Iran’s own ranks, from the powerful Revolutionary Guards to senior security officials, a second senior Iranian official said. They are especially focused on those who travel abroad or have relatives living outside Iran, said the first official.
Tehran grew suspicious of certain members of the Guards who had been travelling to Lebanon, he said. Concerns were raised when one of these individuals began asking about Nasrallah’s whereabouts, particularly inquiring about how long he would remain in specific locations, the official added.
The individual has been arrested along with several others, the first official said, after alarm was raised in Iran’s intelligence circles. The suspect’s family had relocated outside Iran, the official said, without identifying the suspect or his relatives.
The second official said the assassination has spread mistrust between Tehran and Hezbollah, and within Hezbollah.
“The trust that held everything together has disappeared,” the official said.
The supreme leader “no longer trusts anyone”, said a third source who is close to Iran’s establishment.
Alarm bells had already rung within Tehran and Hezbollah about possible Mossad infiltrations after the killing in July of Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in an Israeli airstrike on a secretive Beirut location while meeting an IRGC commander, two Hezbollah sources and a Lebanese security official told Reuters at the time. That killing was followed a few hours later by the assassination of Hamas leader Haniyeh in Tehran.
Hezbollah has refrained from officially appointing a successor to Nasrallah, possibly to avoid making his replacement a target for an Israeli assassination.
US won’t support Israeli strike on Iran nuclear sites — Biden
US President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that he would not support any Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear sites in response to its missile attack and urged Israel to act “proportionally”.
Biden spoke a day after Iran fired more than 180 ballistic missiles at Israel in a move that he previously described as “ineffective”.
“We’ll be discussing with the Israelis what they’re going to do, but all seven of us [G7 nations] agree that they have a right to respond but they should respond proportionally,” Biden told reporters before boarding Air Force One.
Asked whether the US would back any Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear sites, Biden told reporters: “The answer is no.”
Biden said more sanctions would be imposed on Iran and that he would speak soon with Netanyahu.
Lebanon is in immediate need of a ceasefire, says caretaker PM
Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, said on Wednesday the country needed a ceasefire in hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, and that about 1.2 million people in Lebanon had been displaced by Israeli attacks.
“Stop fighting. We don’t need more blood. We don’t need more destruction,” Mikati said in an online briefing organised by the American Task Force on Lebanon, a US-based non-profit. “There is an immediate need for a ceasefire.”
Mikati said a diplomatic end to the escalating war would be a “win-win” for Israel and Lebanon and “all parties” would respect such a deal.
The caretaker premier said he hoped to deploy 10,000 Lebanese army troops in the south if a ceasefire was agreed.
Flights delayed or cancelled in Middle East
Rising tensions in the Middle East have created air travel chaos, with global airlines diverting or cancelling flights on Wednesday and regional airports, including Lebanon, Israel and Kuwait, showing long delays, according to FlightRadar24 data.
Concern over travel disruption as the conflict intensifies also knocked shares in the travel and airline sectors, with shares in Europe’s largest travel operator TUI falling by nearly 5% on the day and Lufthansa down by 4.4%. DM
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