Yanks Strike Targets Linked to Iran in Eastern Syria, as Israeli Command Says Raids Into Gaza Aim To ‘Uncover the Enemy’

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli forces backed by fighter jets and drones carried out a second ground raid into Gaza in as many days and struck enemy targets on the outskirts of Gaza City, the military said Friday, as it prepares for a widely expected ground invasion of the territory ruled, through Hamas, by Iran.American warplanes, meanwhile, struck targets in eastern Syria that the Pentagon said were linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. That followed a string of attacks on American forces. Two mysterious objects hit towns in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, adding to the already high tensions fueled by the three-week-old Gaza war.The military said ground forces raided inside Gaza, striking dozens of militant targets over the past 24 hours. It said aircraft and artillery bombed targets in Shijaiyah, a neighborhood on Gaza City’s outskirts that was the scene of an urban battle in the 2014 Gaza war.The military said the soldiers exited the territory without suffering any casualties. It reported an earlier, hourslong raid into northern Gaza early Thursday.Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, an Israeli military spokesman, said the raids enable forces to “uncover the enemy,” to kill militants and to remove explosives and launch pads. The aim is “to prepare the ground for the next stages of the war,” he added.The conflict has threatened to ignite a wider war across the region. Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed ally of Hamas in Lebanon, has repeatedly traded fire with Israel along the border, and Israel has carried out airstrikes targeting Iran-linked groups in Syria. America has sent two aircraft carrier strike groups to the region, along with additional fighter jets and other weaponry and personnel, in part to deter Iran and its allies from entering the war on the side of Hamas.Secretary of Defense Austin said that the strikes in eastern Syria were “a response to a series of ongoing and mostly unsuccessful attacks against U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria by Iranian-backed militia groups that began on October 17.” He said the operation was separate from the Israel-Hamas war.Iran-backed fighters later fired rockets at an oil facility housing American troops in eastern Syria, according to Syrian opposition activists. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the American strikes had wounded seven Iran-backed Iraqi fighters.Egypt’s military said a drone crashed into a building in the Red Sea town of Taba, on the border with Israel, slightly wounding six people. State media had initially said it was a rocket. In a separate incident, the state-run Al-Qahera news said a “strange object” landed near a power station in the Red Sea town of Nuweiba, further south. Footage showed debris and smoke rising from the side of a nearby mountain.Admiral Hagari, the Israeli military spokesman, said “an aerial threat was identified in the area of the Red Sea,” which appeared to be the source of the Taba incident. He said that fighter jets were dispatched to the area and that Israel, Egypt, and the Yanks were tightening their defenses in the region.Last week, an American destroyer in the northern Red Sea shot down three cruise missiles and several drones launched toward Israel by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in northern Yemen.The Palestinian Arab death toll has soared past 7,000, according to the enemy’s count, as Israel has carried out waves of devastating airstrikes in response to a bloody Hamas incursion into southern Israel on October 7. The Hamas-controlled Health Ministry in Gaza, which tracks the toll, released a detailed list of names and identification numbers on Thursday.The enemy’s tally of the death toll, though, is widely questioned, not only among newspaper editors and Israel’s government but also at Washington. President Biden on Wednesday told a press conference in Washington that he has “no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using.” His point seemed to be not that he lacks complete confidence but that he has “no” confidence in the Hamas numbers.The toll includes more than 2,900 minors and more than 1,500 women. The overall number of deaths far exceeds the combined toll of all four previous wars between Israel and Hamas, estimated at around 4,000.More than 1,400 persons in Israel, mostly civilians, were slain during the initial Hamas attack, according to the Israeli government. Hamas is holding at least 229 captives inside Gaza, including men, women, children and older adults.The airstrikes have flattened entire neighborhoods, causing a level of death and destruction unseen in the last four wars between Israel and Hamas. More than a million persons have fled their homes, with many heeding Israeli orders to evacuate to the south, despite continuing Israeli strikes across the sealed-off territory.

Yanks Strike Targets Linked to Iran in Eastern Syria, as Israeli Command Says Raids Into Gaza Aim To ‘Uncover the Enemy’

Yanks Strike Targets Linked to Iran in Eastern Syria, as Israeli Command Says Raids Into Gaza Aim To ‘Uncover the Enemy’

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