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At least 12 people were killed in two Israeli strikes that targeted guards protecting an aid convoy in southern Gaza.
Published On 12 Dec 2024
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Israel launches military strikes against Iran
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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Israel launched airstrikes early Saturday on what it described as military targets in Iran in retaliation for a ballistic missile assault Oct. 1, officials said. There was no immediate information on damage in the Islamic Republic.
Israel’s military described the attack as “precise strikes on military targets in Iran,” without immediately elaborating.
“The regime in Iran and its proxies in the region have been relentlessly attacking Israel since Oct. 7 – on seven fronts – including direct attacks from Iranian soil,” an Israeli military statement said. “Like every other sovereign country in the world, the State of Israel has the right and the duty to respond.”
In Tehran, the Iranian capital, the sound of explosions could be heard, with state-run media there initially acknowledging the blasts and saying some of the sounds came from air defense systems around the city.
A Tehran resident told The Associated Press that at least seven explosions could be heard, which rattled the surrounding area. The resident spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
Meanwhile, state media in Syria described its air defenses as targeting “hostile targets” there as well.
Iran has launched two ballistic missile attacks on Israel in recent months amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip that began with the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Israel also has launched a ground invasion of Lebanon.
The strike happened just as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was arriving back in the U.S. after a tour of the Middle East where he and other U.S. officials had warned Israel to tender a response that would not further escalate the conflict in the region and exclude nuclear sites in Iran.
White House National Security Council spokesman Sean Savett said in a statement that “we understand that Israel is conducting targeted strikes against military targets in Iran” and referred reporters to the Israeli government for more details on their operation.
Israel had vowed to hit Iran hard following a massive Iranian missile barrage on Oct. 1. Iran said its barrage was in response to deadly Israeli attacks against its proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah, and it has promised to respond to any retaliatory strikes.
Israel and Iran have been bitter foes since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Israel considers Iran to be its greatest threat, citing its leaders’ calls for Israel’s destruction, their support for anti-Israel militant groups and the country’s nuclear program.
Israel and Iran have been locked in a yearslong shadow war. A suspected Israeli assassination campaign has killed top Iranian nuclear scientists. Iranian nuclear installations have been hacked or sabotaged, all in mysterious attacks blamed on Israel. Meanwhile, Iran has been blamed for a series of attacks on shipping in the Middle East in recent years, which later grew into the attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on shipping through the Red Sea corridor.
But since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, the battle has increasingly moved into the open. Israel has recently turned its attention to Hezbollah, which has been firing rockets into Israel since the war in Gaza began. Throughout the year, a number of top Iranian military figures have been killed in Israeli strikes in Syria and Lebanon.
Iran fired a wave of missiles and drones at Israel last April after two Iranian generals were killed in an apparent Israeli airstrike in Syria on an Iranian diplomatic post. The missiles and drones caused minimum damage, and Israel — under pressure from Western countries to show restraint — responded with a limited strike.
But after Iran’s early October missile strike, Israel promised a tougher response.
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All that’s left is a key: Palestinians fleeing Israel’s bombs dream of home
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Deir el-Balah, Gaza – A year of war, displacement and horror has not made the people of Gaza forget the homes they had to leave behind to save their families from relentless Israeli bombing.
Al Jazeera spoke to three women who are now living in a refugee camp near Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir el-Balah. They fled with their families, but held on to the one object that unifies all Palestinians deprived of their homes and lands: the keys to their houses.
No longer the large iron keys that their forebears took with them when they were ethnically cleansed in the Nakba of 1948, these small, modern keys are just as important to a dispossessed people as ever.
Abeer
Abeer al-Salibi, 37, lives in the crowded Deir el-Balah displacement camp and still carries the key to her house, though it now lies in ruins.
She, her husband and their seven children live in a tent, a far cry from the home they built over 17 years of toil.
She dreams of home, a modest house with a small garden in al-Karama, north of Gaza City.
“We only lived in it for three years before it was [bombed] last October,” Abeer recalled. “All that’s left of it is this key.”
Since they were forced from their home, the family has been displaced five times: Nuseirat to Rafah, then Khan Younis, and finally now to Deir el-Balah.
“Home is life. I miss my life. I miss the simple routine of waking my children for school, welcoming them back,” Abeer said with a soft smile.
She dreams of returning, even if it means living on the ruins of what was once their home.
“I’ll set up a tent on the rubble if I have to. We will rebuild. The important thing is to return.”
Wafaa
Wafaa Sharaf, 20, had only been married for six months when the war erupted, derailing the dreams she had with her 20-year-old husband, Islam.
Pregnant with her first child, she was forced in November to flee her home in as-Saftawi, north of Gaza City.
Islam had lovingly prepared a small apartment on the top floor of his father’s house for the couple to live in.
“It was no more than 60sq metres (646sq feet), but to me, it was heaven,” Wafaa said.
“We had been planning the baby’s room, and my mother had prepared clothes for the newborn. We left everything behind when we fled.
“I didn’t want to leave the house. My soul was still tied to it,” Wafaa said. “But when shells started falling … we had no choice.”
She gave birth to her daughter Leen in the overcrowded camp in January, during one of Gaza’s coldest winters.
The couple do not know what happened to their home, relying on second or third-hand accounts of people who had seen it.
Regardless, Wafaa has just one wish: “To return to my home. I don’t want anything else.”
Hiba
Hiba al-Hindawi, a 29-year-old mother of three, says that if she could do it all over again, she would have never left her home.
“I left out of fear for my children and myself. The bombing was relentless.”
She wishes she had taken more from the house, precious items like her wedding photos and pictures of her children when they were young.
“It’s all gone now,” she said quietly.
Looking back, she recognises the everyday luxuries of having a refrigerator, washing machine, and beds.
“I just wish I could wash my hands from a tap or use a bathroom like normal. It feels like we’ve been thrown back to the Stone Age.”
More than anything, she just wants the war to end.
“I want this Nakba to stop,” she said desperately.
In the future, she said, she will tell her grandchildren about the horrors of war that she and her children are living through.
“If we survive, I’ll tell them what we saw,” she said.
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