By Elwely Elwelly and Maya Gebeily
DUBAI/BEIRUT (Reuters) -The commander of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards warned Israel on Thursday against attacking the Islamic Republic in retaliation for a missile barrage as its arch-foe stepped up its offensive in Lebanon against Tehran-backed Hezbollah.
Fears of wider conflict have increased as Israel plans its response to the Oct. 1 missile attack carried out by Iran after Israeli airstrikes on Iranian-allied militants.
“We tell you [Israel] that if you commit any aggression against any point we will painfully attack the same point of yours,” Hossein Salami said in a televised speech, adding that Iran can penetrate Israel’s defences.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Wednesday about Israel’s operations in Lebanon and Gaza, aiming to avert a regional war. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi landed in Cairo for talks with Egyptian officials as part of a Middle Eastern tour as tension builds.
The European Union held its first summit with Gulf states and issued a statement calling for calm: “We underscore the importance of diplomatic engagement with Iran –– to pursue regional de-escalation,” it said.
Israel shows no signs of easing its military campaigns against Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza despite repeated calls for ceasefires and it has vowed to punish Iran for its Oct. 1 attack.
Iran and its Middle East allies — Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Hamas, Yemen’s Houthis and armed groups in Iraq — say they will not back down in the face of relentless pressure from the most advanced and power military in the region.
The mayor of a major town in south Lebanon was among 16 people killed on Wednesday when an Israeli airstrike destroyed its municipal headquarters in the biggest attack on an official Lebanese state building since the Israeli air campaign began.
Lebanese officials denounced the incident, which also wounded more than 50 people in Nabatieh, a provincial capital, saying it was proof that Israel’s campaign against the Hezbollah armed group was now shifting to target the Lebanese state.
The Israelis “intentionally targeted a meeting of the municipal council to discuss the city’s service and relief situation” to aid people displaced by the Israeli campaign, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said.
Israel and Hezbollah have been fighting since the militant group began firing missiles at its arch-foe a year ago in support of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in Gaza.
European Union commissioner for crisis management, Janez Lenarcic, said Israel’s “brutal response” to the Hamas attack that started the war had resulted in a devastating humanitarian crisis in Gaza that was now continuing in Lebanon.
“Humanitarian workers have been targeted and killed, hundreds of them. There is no security and safety for humanitarian work to be organized in satisfactory manner,” he told Reuters on the sidelines of an ASEAN event in Jakarta, describing the provision of humanitarian supplies as “grossly insufficient”.
US TARGETS HOUTHIS
The U.S. said on Wednesday it struck five underground weapons storage locations in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, the latest in more than a dozen U.S. attacks on Houthi-linked targets this month.
Iran-aligned Houthi fighters in Yemen who say they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians in Israel’s year-long war in Gaza have carried out nearly 100 attacks on ships crossing the Red Sea since November.
Israel also launched strikes at Syria’s Mediterranean port city of Latakia early on Thursday, Syrian state media reported.
Israeli operations in Lebanon have killed at least 2,350 people over the last year, according to the health ministry, and more than 1.2 million people have been displaced. The death toll does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but includes hundreds of women and children.
Around 50 Israelis, both soldiers and civilians, have been killed in the same period, according to Israel.
PEACEKEEPERS REPORT MORE FIRE
Israel has come under scrutiny for its dealings with U.N. peacekeepers in south Lebanon.
The U.N. mission in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said its peacekeepers observed an Israeli tank firing at their watchtower near southern Lebanon’s Kfar Kela on Wednesday morning. Two cameras were destroyed, and the tower was damaged, UNIFIL said.
Israel’s military said the incident, the latest in a number of attacks that UNIFIL says have targeted its troops, was under investigation.
“UNIFIL infrastructure sites and forces are not a target and every irregular incident will be thoroughly examined,” the military said, adding that Hezbollah has been operating from “sites that have been built within and adjacent to UNIFIL posts for many years.”
Israel has called on the United Nations to move members of the UNIFIL peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon out of the combat zone for their safety.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, on a visit to northern Israel near the border, said Israel would not halt its assault on Hezbollah to allow negotiations.
“We will hold negotiations only under fire. I said this on day one, I said it in Gaza and I am saying it here,” he said according to a statement from his office.