According to Iranian sources, several members of the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) were killed in an airstrike in the Syrian capital Damascus. This was reported by the state broadcaster. The channel’s Arabic department reported that two senior advisers were among the dead. State television blamed Israel for the attack.
According to information from Iran’s Mehr News Agency, the Iranians were IRGC intelligence officers. A person in charge, his deputy and two other men are said to have died in the attack. According to the Tasnim news agency, which is considered the mouthpiece of the IRGC, at least eight people were killed.
The Israeli Air Force has repeatedly attacked targets in neighboring Syria in the past to prevent Israel’s arch-enemy Iran and its allied militias from expanding their military influence there.
There are many reasons for growing concern about escalation
Since the Gaza war broke out, the situation in the Middle East has been extremely tense. On the border between Lebanon and Israel, the Iranian-allied Shiite militia Hezbollah and the Israeli army are firing at each other – including on Saturday. A car was hit by a rocket in southern Lebanon, according to Lebanese security sources. Two of the inmates were killed. It was initially unclear who the attack was aimed at. The Israeli army declined to comment on the report.
Amid the tensions, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards also fired missiles from their own territory into Iraq, Syria and Pakistan for the first time since the start of the war a few days ago in retaliation for terrorist attacks and the killing of a general in Syria.
At the end of December, Iranian General Sejed-Rasi Mousavi, a senior member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), was killed in a suspected Israeli airstrike in a suburb of the Syrian capital Damascus.
US military: renewed attack on Houthi militia
According to their own statements, US forces again destroyed an anti-ship missile belonging to the Yemeni Houthi militia. The responsible regional command of the US military announced on the platform The operation took place early on Saturday morning (local time).
Since the beginning of the Gaza war between Israel and the Islamist Hamas, the Houthi militia has repeatedly attacked freighters with alleged Israeli connections in the Red Sea. In response, the USA and Great Britain, with the support of allies, carried out a comprehensive military strike against the Houthis on the night of January 12th. Since then, the US military has continued to attack Houthi positions in Yemen. In return, the militant Islamist group continues to attack ships in the Red Sea.
Israel’s military: rocket workshops found and destroyed in Gaza
In the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military says it has discovered and destroyed a large number of workshops for building rockets. While searching areas in the Seitoun district of Gaza city, the military also came across rocket launchers, explosive devices, machinery and chemicals, the armed forces said.
The material found would have been enough to produce 800 rockets, the statement continued. The workshops were designed so that each of them only produced rocket components. Hamas spread the rocket factories across the area to make it more difficult to detect and combat them.
Almost 25,000 dead according to Hamas authorities in the Gaza Strip
Since the start of the war, 24,927 people have been killed and 62,388 injured in the coastal strip. This was reported by the Hamas-controlled health authority. The humanitarian situation of the population remains catastrophic due to the fighting, great destruction and inadequate supplies, as the UN emergency relief office OCHA announced on Platform X on Saturday night. Many of the approximately 1.7 million internally displaced people endured under plastic sheets. Diarrheal diseases spread due to poor hygiene. There are also reports of cases of hepatitis A.
The Israeli army said an unspecified number of terrorists were killed and weapons destroyed in fighting in various parts of the Gaza Strip. According to Israeli media, 194 soldiers have died on the Israeli side since the ground offensive began at the end of October.
Israeli military: hostage dungeon discovered in Gaza tunnel
The Israeli military says it has found a tunnel in the Gaza Strip, parts of which served as a dungeon for people abducted from Israel. “From what we know, 20 hostages are being held inside in stuffy air with little oxygen and terrible humidity that makes breathing difficult,” army spokesman Daniel Hagari said at a news conference.
The tunnel was discovered under the house of a Hamas terrorist in Khan Yunis. Israeli soldiers arrived at the dungeon site after walking about one kilometer along an underground passage at a depth of 20 meters. The hostages were there at different times, and some of them have since been released through an exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
Hagari presented photos of the underground facility where the hostages were said to have been held. He also showed images of children’s drawings said to have been made by a five-year-old girl who was among the hostages released at the end of November. The army’s top priority is to free the other 136 hostages who are still held by Hamas. “The effort is supported by technical means, special forces and intelligence information that we are constantly optimizing,” said Hagari.
Thousands demonstrate in Israel against Netanyahu government
Meanwhile, thousands of people demonstrated in Israel against the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In the coastal metropolis of Tel Aviv, participants in a rally demanded an immediate end to the Gaza war in order to free the more than 100 hostages held by Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip. “Stop fighting, pay the price!” Israeli media quoted one of the speakers, whose cousin is among the hostages, as saying.
After an initial exchange of 105 hostages for 240 Palestinian prisoners at the end of November, Hamas only wants to release the others it abducted when Israel’s military withdraws from the Gaza Strip. Netanyahu and his colleagues, however, say that only the military defeat of Hamas can lead to the liberation of the abductees.
