Gaza tensions spike after blasts, killing

Gaza [Palestine], January 4: Fears that the Zionist entity's war in Gaza could spiral across the Middle East grew Wednesday after a drone strike killed a Hamas senior leader in Lebanon and twin explosions ripped through an Iranian crowd, claiming at least 103 lives. The blasts - which were not claimed by any actor but labelled a "terrorist attack" on state-run TV - came with regional tensions running high a day after Hamas number two Saleh Al-Aruri was killed in a Beirut drone strike that was widely blamed on the Zionist entity.
Zionist army spokesman Daniel Hagari said, following Tuesday's unclaimed Beirut attack, that the military was in a "very high state of readiness in all arenas" and "highly prepared for any scenario". The Zionist entity and Iran have long been bitter enemies, and violence involving Iran-backed groups in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen has spiked amid the Gaza war. Lebanon's Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah has meanwhile vowed retaliation against its Zionist foe, which it blamed for the drone strike in its stronghold of southern Beirut.
Hezbollah vowed the killing of Aruri and six other Hamas operatives would not go unpunished and labelled it "a serious assault on Lebanon... and a dangerous development". The powerful group's leader Hassan Nasrallah, who has lived in hiding for years, delivered a televised address on Wednesday evening.
Amid the almost three-month-old war, the Zionist entity has traded almost daily cross-border fire with Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, while so far avoiding a full-scale war. Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian condemned the "cowardly" Beirut strike and said it proved that the Zionist entity "has not achieved any of its goals after weeks of war crimes, genocide and destruction in Gaza and the West Bank of Palestine, despite the direct support of the White House".
The Zionist entity has launched a relentless offensive that has reduced vast swathes of Gaza to rubble and claimed over 22,300 lives. Most of its 2.4 million people have been displaced and forced south, where many now live in crowded shelters and tents.
The Zionist army again bombed Gaza targets overnight, including in the southern city of Rafah where eyewitnesses said survivors flocked to Al-Najjar Hospital to mourn the dead, including a child. The Zionist entity has labelled Hamas' Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar a "dead man walking" and vowed to also kill other commanders of the Islamist movement.
The head of Mossad, David Barnea, said the Zionist entity's spy agency "is committed to settling the score with the murderers" who carried out the Oct 7 attack and with Hamas' leadership. "It will take time, just like after the Munich massacre, but we will lay our hands on them wherever they will be," he said, referring to the 1972 attack on Zionist Olympic athletes in Germany by the Palestinian militant group Black September.
In the Zionist-occupied West Bank - the Palestinian territory where Aruri was born, and which has seen an upsurge in violence since Oct 7 - the Palestinian Authority called a general strike to mourn his death. Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh also condemned the killing and warned of its "risks and consequences".
More Zionist strikes on Tuesday struck a building of the Palestinian Red Crescent in the southern city of Khan Yunis, killing five people, the organization said. The head of the UN World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, deplored the strikes as "unconscionable".
Source: Kuwait Times