Iran warns Israel against attacks, Israel keeps up pressure on Hezbollah

JERUSALEM/BEIRUT — Iran warned Israel on Tuesday (Oct 8) against any attacks on the Islamic Republic a week after Tehran fired a barrage of missiles on it, putting the Middle East on edge.

Any attack on Iran's infrastructure will be met with retaliation, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said, warning Israel against attacks on his country.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military piled more pressure on Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah, eliminating the commander of Hezbollah's headquarters in a strike in the area of Beirut, it said in a statement on Tuesday.

If confirmed, the death of Suhail Hussein Husseini would be a result of Israel's strategy of inflicting major blows by assassinating leaders and commanders of Hezbollah and its ally Hamas, which has been fighting Israel in Gaza for a year.

In the biggest blow to Hezbollah in decades, Israel killed its leader Hassan Nasrallah with an air strike in Beirut's southern suburbs late last month.

Tensions run high

The attacks have raised fears that the United States, Israel's closest ally, and the Islamic Republic of Iran would be sucked into a full-blown conflict in the oil producing Middle East.

Tension between arch-foes Iran and Israel is running high after years of shadow war and assassinations have turned into direct confrontations that have put the region on edge.

Israel has been weighing options to respond to Tehran's ballistic missile attack last week, carried out in response to Israel's military action in Lebanon.

US news website Axios cited Israeli officials as saying Iran's oil facilities could be hit, which would be a serious escalation that could drive up global oil prices.

On Friday, President Joe Biden said he would think about alternatives to striking Iranian oilfields if he were in Israel's shoes, adding he thought it had not yet concluded how to respond to Iran.

Israeli airstrikes have displaced 1.2 million people in Lebanon, and Israel's intensified bombing campaign has worried many Lebanese that their country will experience the vast scale of destruction wrought on Gaza by Israel.

Israeli forces issued a warning in Arabic to beachgoers and boat users to avoid a stretch of the Lebanese coast, saying they would soon begin operations against Hezbollah from the sea.

About 2,000 Lebanese have been killed since Hezbollah began firing at Israel a year ago in solidarity with Hamas, most killed in the past few weeks.

The Israeli military has described its ground operation in Lebanon as localised and limited, but it has steadily increased in scale beginning last week.

The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) says its aim is to clear border areas where Hezbollah fighters have been embedded, with no plans to go deep into Lebanon.

ALSO READ: Hamas will rise 'like a phoenix' from the ashes, says leader-in-exile