TEL AVIV – Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran will “pay”, after Iran fired around 180 missiles at Israel on Tuesday.
Most of the missiles were intercepted – one Palestinian was killed in the West Bank, and a school in central Israel and restaurant in Tel Aviv were hit.
Iran said the barrage was in response to Israel’s “aggressive acts”, including the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Israel said it is sending “additional forces” to its ground operation inside Lebanon, which began earlier this week, and has told more villages to evacuate.
Hezbollah said t repelled an Israeli ground attack in Lebanon on Wednesday, and it has continued firing rockets at Israel.
As many as 100 rockets were fired into Israel from Lebanon on Wednesday, Israeli media reported.
Overnight, Israel’s air force continued to strike what it says are Hezbollah targets in Beirut’s southern suburbs – with one Lebanese politician describing the repeated barrages as “traumatizing”.
Meanwhile, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, met a group of elites in Tehran on Wednesday.
He blamed the regional tension and wars on “US and some European countries” which “falsely claim they bring peace and tranquillity to the region”.
He said they must “get lost” from the region so that the countries in the region can live in peace.
He said that he is “mourning” over the death of Hezbollah Leader Hassan Nasrallah, but did not postpone his meeting with elites because Iran’s mourning is a “reviving and driving” force.
The order to launch missiles at Israel on Tuesday was made by the country’s supreme leader – who remains in a secure location, a senior Iranian official told Reuters news agency. (BBC)
