Will intervene if Israel launches ground offensive: Iran foreign minister

Iran’s foreign minister called on Israel to stop its attacks on Gaza, warning that the war might expand to other parts of the West Asia if Hezbollah joins the battle, and that would make Israel suffer “a huge earthquake,” The Times of Israel reported.

Meanehile, the US is ratcheting up efforts to prevent the war from engulfing the wider region, acting on concerns that Israel’s arch-enemy Iran is poised to escalate the conflict.

The US has held back-channel talks with Iran in recent days to warn the country against escalation, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Sunday on CBS. Sullivan said the US couldn’t rule out Iran intervening either directly or via Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based militia group that it sponsors. 

The US has asked Qatar to relay a warning to Hezbollah not to open up a second front to the war in the country’s north.

Hossein Amirabdollahian in Beirut said that Lebanon’s Hezbollah terror group has taken all war scenarios into consideration and Israel should stop its attacks on Gaza as soon as possible. While  Israel’s defence minister said that Israel has no interest in waging war on its northern front and that if the Lebanese group Hezbollah restrains itself then Israel will keep the situation along the border as it is. 

Meanwhile, the Axios reported that Tehran has sent Jerusalem a message through the UN that it will intervene if the campaign in Gaza continues, and particularly if it launches a ground offensive. The report cited two diplomatic sources.

The report said Amirabdollahian made the comments when he met Saturday with UN Middle East envoy Tor Wennesland in Beirut, a meeting that led to intense criticism from Israel.

Later on Saturday, Amirabdollahian met in Qatar with Hamas politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh.

The Israeli military declared a zone within 4 kilometres of the Lebanese border off-limits to public access on Sunday and said it was deliberately disrupting GPS services there and on the southern front with Gaza as part of its operations.

The GPS disruptions could affect the functions of apps, chief military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari posted on X (formerly Twitter).

Meanwhile, the Israeli army is awaiting a “political decision” on the timing of a major ground offensive on the Gaza Strip, military spokesmen said on Sunday as Israel’s Energy Minister said that a decision to renew water supplies to parts of southern Gaza was agreed on between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden.

Energy Minister Israel Katz said that the decision to partially renew water supplies was in line with Israeli policy, which is to tighten a blockade on the Hamas-ruled territory.

Rockets were fired at Tel Aviv and southern Israel overnight, and the Israel Defense Forces attacked targets in and around the northern part of Gaza. It was not immediately clear how much damage, if any, was caused in the rocket attacks. Hezbollah claimed a strike from Lebanon that killed one Israeli and wounded three. 

Israel also acknowledged for the first time that it had intelligence of something happening in Gaza two hours before the attack on October 7.

The Israeli military said on Sunday its fighter jets killed a top Hamas commander, responsible for the Kibbutz Nirim massacre in Israel. In a statement, the military said this occurred Saturday night during operations that also took out Hamas rocket launchers.  He was commander of the Nukhba forces in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip. Nukhba are the elite Hamas military unit that Israel says trained and led the October 7 attack. 

The US has also sent a second aircraft carrier group to the eastern Mediterranean in support of Israel, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said. The USS Eisenhower carrier strike group will join the USS Gerald Ford, sent shortly after the Hamas attacks.

Will demolish Hamas, vows Netanyahu 

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Sunday to “demolish Hamas” as his military prepared ground operations in Gaza to root out the militant group. Israel has urged Gazans to evacuate south, which hundreds of thousands have already done in their Hamas-controlled enclave that is home to 2.2 million people, about half in Gaza City. Inside besieged Gaza , where conditions are deteriorating and deaths from Israeli air strikes rising, civilians said they had nowhere to flee and were not safe anywhere.

Reuters

Death toll makes this deadliest of five Gaza wars

The Gaza Health Ministry said 2,329 Palestinians have been killed since the latest fighting erupted, making this the deadliest of the five Gaza wars for Palestinians. The death toll on Sunday surpassed that of the third war between Israel and Hamas, in the summer of 2014, when 2,251 Palestinians, including 1,462 civilians, were killed, according to UN figures. That war lasted six weeks, and 74 people were killed on the Israeli side, including six civilians. For Israel, this is the deadliest war since the 1973 conflict with Egypt and Syria.

AP/PTI

Biden speaks to Israel PM, Palestine prez

US President Joe Biden spoke with Palestinian Authority President Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday to discuss efforts to ensure civilians in Gaza had access to food, water and medical care. In the call with Abbas, the first known talk between the two since the attacks, Biden condemned Hamas and offered the Palestinian Authority his “full support” on efforts to provide humanitarian assistance to Palestinians. Biden spoke with both leaders about joint efforts to secure the delivery of supplies in Gaza.

Bloomberg

China: Israel is ‘beyond scope of self-defence’

Israel’s actions in Gaza have gone “beyond the scope of self-defence” and the Israeli government must “cease its collective punishment of the people of Gaza”, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in remarks published on Sunday. “Israel’s actions have gone beyond the scope of self-defence,” Wang said according to a foreign ministry readout. “(Israel) should listen earnestly to the calls of the international community and cease its collective punishment of the people of Gaza," Wang added in what is the strongest stance China has expressed so far on the conflict.  

Reuters

McDonald’s faces heat for giving free meals to IDF

McDonald’s is facing heat after it announced that it would provide free meals to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). McDonald’s Israel posted on Instagram that it was giving thousands of free meals to hospitals and troops in the Israel Defence Forces. It wrote, “Update that already yesterday we donated 4000 meals to hospitals and military units, we intend to donate thousands of meals every day to soldiers in the field and in drafting areas, and this is beyond a discount to soldiers coming to restaurants. We opened 5 outlets only for this,” Newsweek reported.

Agencies