ISRAEL on Tuesday bombed areas of southern Gaza where it had told Palestinians to flee ahead of an expected invasion, killing hundreds of people. Reacting to Israel’s bombing, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Tuesday warned that nobody would be able to stop Muslims around the world and “resistance forces” if Israel continues bombing Gaza, reports said. Meanwhile, an anti-tank missile fired from Lebanon landed in northern Israel. Meanwhile, mediators struggled to break a deadlock over delivering aid to millions of increasingly desperate civilians in the territory, which has been besieged and under assault by Israel since a brutal attack by Hamas militants. Flaring violence along Israel’s border with Lebanon also led to concerns over a widening regional conflict that diplomats were working to prevent. In Gaza, people wounded in the airstrikes were rushed to the hospital after heavy attacks outside the southern Gaza cities of Rafah and Khan Younis, residents reported. Basem Naim, a senior Hamas official and former Health Minister, reported 27 people were killed in Rafah and 30 in Khan Younis.

 

An ‘Associated Press’ reporter saw around 50 bodies brought to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. Family members came to claim the bodies, wrapped in white bedsheets, some soaked in blood. An airstrike in Deir al Balah reduced a house to rubble, killing nine members of the family living there. Three members of another family that had evacuated from Gaza City were killed in a neighbouring home. The dead included one man and 11 women and children. Witnesses said there was no warning before the strike. The Israeli military said it was targeting Hamas hideouts, infrastructure and command centers. Ayatollah Khamenei: IRAN’S Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Tuesday warned that nobody would be able to stop Muslims around the world and “resistance forces” if Israel continues bombing Gaza, reports said. “If the crimes of the Zionist (Israeli) regime continue, Muslims and resistance forces will become impatient, and no one can stop them,” Khamenei said, Daily Mail reported, citing Iranian state TV. “No matter what the Zionist regime does, it cannot make up for the scandalous failure it suffered,” Khamenei said. The comments follow calls by former Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal for a “Day of Jihad’ across the Muslim world last Friday, before hundreds of thousands of protesters turned out worldwide to show solidarity with the beleaguered Gazans as more than one million were forced to flee their homes.

 

Clashes again erupt on the Lebanon-Israel border: CLASHES erupted again on Tuesday on the border between Lebanon and Israel, where Israeli forces and armed groups in Lebanon have engaged in a series of low-level skirmishes since the outbreak of the latest war in Gaza. An anti-tank missile fired from Lebanon landed in the town of Metula in northern Israel Tuesday morning, injuring three people, according to the Ziv Medical Centre in Safed. No group in Lebanon has immediately claimed responsibility. It was not clear if the injured were civilians or soldiers, but Israel has ordered civilians to evacuate the area near the border with Lebanon. Israel responded by striking several areas along the border in southern Lebanon with artillery fire and white phosphorus, the state-run National News Agency in Lebanon reported. The Israeli military said its tanks fired back into Lebanon after an anti-tank missile was launched across the border. Earlier on Tuesday, the Israeli military said it killed four militants who had attempted to plant explosive devices on a border wall between Israel and Lebanon.

 

A video from an Israeli army reconnaissance drone showed the militants near the separation wall as they were targeted, causing an explosion. Biden to travel to Israel, Jordan today: PRESIDENT Joe Biden will travel to Israel on Wednesday in a high-stakes visit to demonstrate his “steadfast support” for the Jewish state following Hamas’ attack, as the US intensified diplomatic efforts to address the worsening humanitarian crisis in the besieged Gaza Strip. “On Wednesday, I’ll travel to Israel to stand in solidarity in the face of Hamas’s brutal terrorist attack. I’ll then travel to Jordan,” Biden said.