Iran, Israel appear to pull back from brink of war
Agence France-Presse . Ramallah 21 April, 2024, 00:31
A Palestinian man mourns relatives killed in Israeli bombing in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Saturday amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Hamas movement. | AFP photo
Iran has dismissed as akin to child's play the reported Israeli retaliation for an unprecedented Iranian strike, as both sides on Saturday appeared to step back from wider conflict stemming from the war in Gaza.
But a deadly blast at an Iraqi military base emphasised the high tensions which persist, and witnesses in Gaza reported more strikes there.
Fears of a wider Middle East war escalated this month.
Israel had warned it would hit back after Iran fired hundreds of missiles and drones one week ago in retaliation for a deadly April 1 air strike—which Iran blamed on Israel—that levelled the Iranian consulate in Damascus and killed seven Revolutionary Guards.
The Israeli retaliation appeared to come on Friday, when Iranian media reported blasts in the central province of Isfahan.
Fars news agency reported 'three explosions' close to Qahjavarestan, near Isfahan airport and the 8th Shekari army airbase.
'What happened last night was no attack,' foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told NBC News in a Friday interview.
'It was the flight of two or three quadcopters, which are at the level of toys that our children use in Iran.'
He added that, 'As long as there is no new adventure on behalf of the Israeli regime against Iran's interests, we will have no response.'
Israeli officials have made no public comment on what, according to a senior United States congressional source who spoke to AFP, were retaliatory Israeli strikes against Iran.
Tensions soared after the attack on Iran's consulate, but violence involving Iran-backed groups had already surged throughout the Middle East alongside the Gaza war.
Officials in Iraq on Saturday said one person was killed and eight wounded in an explosion at an Iraqi military base housing a coalition of pro-Iranian armed groups.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
Last weekend, Iran launched its first-ever attack directly targeting Israel.
With the help of the United States and other allies, Israel intercepted most of the more than 300 missiles and drones it said Iran had launched.
Iran said its attack was in retaliation for the April 1 strike on its Damascus embassy consular annex.
The Palestinian Authority will 'reconsider' its relationship with the United States after Washington vetoed a Palestinian bid for full UN membership earlier this week, president Mahmud Abbas said Saturday.
'The Palestinian leadership will reconsider bilateral relations with the United States to ensure the protection of our people's interests, our cause, and our rights,' Abbas told the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.
Wafa said his remarks came 'on the heels of the United States' use of veto power' at the UN Security Council.
Thursday's vote saw 12 countries on the Council back a resolution recommending full Palestinian membership and two — Britain and Switzerland — abstain.
Only the United States, Israel's staunchest ally, voted against, using its veto to block the resolution.
Abbas said the Palestinian leadership will 'develop a new strategy to protect Palestinian national decisions independently and follow a Palestinian agenda rather than an American vision or regional agendas'.
He said Palestinians would 'not remain hostage to policies that have proven their failure and have been exposed to the entire world'.
And he said the stance of the US government had 'generated unprecedented anger among the Palestinian people and the region's populations, potentially pushing the region towards further instability, chaos and terrorism'.
Gaza's civil defence agency said Saturday an overnight Israeli strike killed nine members of a Palestinian family including six children in the southern city Rafah.
Five children aged one to seven and a 16-year-old girl were among the dead, along with two women and a man, according to the city's Al Najjar hospital.
'Nine martyrs including six children were pulled out from the rubble after Israeli air forces struck a house of the Radwan family in Tal al-Sultan in Rafah,' Gaza Civil Defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said in a statement.
Outside the hospital an AFP journalist saw people grieving over small body bags. A woman stroked a dead boy's forehead as planes rumbled overhead.
'People were sleeping peacefully,' said neighbour Abu Mohammed Ziyadah.
'As you can see, there were no militants, not even male adults, except for the head of the family. They were all women and children.'
Soon after the war in Gaza began on October 7, Israel told Palestinians living in the north of Gaza to move to 'safe zones' in the territory's south such as Rafah.
But Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has since vowed to invade the city, where around 1.5 million people — more than half the territory's population — are sheltering.
Israel has for two months threatened to send troops in against Hamas militants, but even without such an operation Rafah is under regular bombardment.
Bassal said the Israeli army struck several areas in Rafah overnight, including Salam neighbourhood where one person was killed and several wounded. He said the army hit a house and a nursery school.
'It has been a very hard night on Rafah,' he said.
In the north of the occupied West Bank, the Israeli army said Saturday troops had killed 10 militants in an ongoing raid around Nur Shams, a refugee camp.
AFP journalists heard gunshots and saw houses hit by blasts as Israeli drones flew overhead and armoured vehicles moved through the camp.
Since early last year, violence has flared in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967. It has escalated further since war broke out in Gaza on October 7.
The Palestinian health ministry said it had confirmed 11 wounded in the Israeli raid, seven of them 'wounded by live gunshots'. It said a paramedic shot while trying to get to the wounded was among them.
The health ministry said medics had been alerted to 'a number of killed and injured' inside the camp, but said the army was 'denying them access to tend to the wounded'.
An AFP journalist said paramedics had tried to enter the camp but had been refused access by the army.
Israeli forces say their frequent raids target Palestinian militants, but civilians are often among the dead.
On Friday the health ministry said 16-year-old Qais Fathi Nasrallah was killed by Israeli troops in the nearby Tulkarem refugee camp.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said he died after being 'shot in the head by Israeli live gunfire'. It was unclear exactly when he died.
A 30-year-old man, Salim Faisal Ghanem, was 'killed by Israeli troops' on Friday in the Nur Shams camp, Wafa said.
Residents contacted by AFP on Saturday said there was no electricity in the camp and food was running short, saying nobody was allowed to enter or leave.
Minister Muayad Shaaban, head of the Palestinian Colonisation and Wall Resistance Commission, said residents were suffering from the 'destruction of homes, shops, the electricity grid, the sewerage, the water network and infrastructure.'
Around 480 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops or settlers in the West Bank since the Hamas assault on Israel triggered the Gaza war, according to Palestinian official sources.
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