Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkiyan said today that Iran "does not seek war", promising at the same time that there will be an "even stronger response" from Iran in the event of Israeli retaliation for the large Iranian missile attack carried out on Israel the previous day.
If Israel "wants to react, we will have a stronger response," Pezeshkian said at a joint press conference in Doha with Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani.
"Iran is not asking for war, Israel forced us to react," the Iranian president added.
He said this a day after the Iranian attack on Israel with about 200 rockets, of which, according to Tehran, 90 percent reached their target.
The Israeli army, on the other hand, announced that its air defense intercepted a large number of those rockets, specifying today that the rockets fell on air bases in the country but did not cause any damage.
A direct Iranian attack on Israel, the second since April, set off sirens across Israel, wounded two people in Israel and killed one Palestinian in the occupied West Bank, according to rescuers and a Palestinian official.
"What we are asking from the USA and European countries is to tell the entity they planted in the region (Israel) to stop shedding blood," Pezeškijan said.
The emir of Qatar warned that Israel is bringing the region "to the brink of the abyss" with its attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The Qatari emir also condemned Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip and said Doha was continuing its mediation efforts to reach a truce in the war that was sparked nearly a year ago by a Palestinian Hamas attack on Israeli soil.
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The head of the Israeli army said that Israel will respond to a missile attack by Iran and that its forces can carry out strikes anywhere in the Middle East.
"We will respond. We can locate important targets and we can hit them precisely and powerfully," Israel's army chief of staff, Herzi Halevi, said in a video message from an air base in central Israel, a day after Iran's missile attack on Israel.
"We have the ability to reach and strike every location in the Middle East and those enemies of ours who have not understood this yet will understand soon," Halevi added, Israeli media reported.
He said that yesterday Iran fired about 200 rockets at the state of Israel, that it attacked civilian areas and endangered the lives of many civilians, but that thanks to their proper behavior and high-quality defense, the damage was relatively small.
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The Israeli army announced today that eight of its soldiers were killed in the fighting in southern Lebanon where it began a ground operation on Tuesday, Israeli media reported.
Soldiers were killed in two cases, military officials said, the Associated Press reported.
Israeli commandos were killed in an armed battle with Hezbollah operatives in a southern Lebanese village.
The death of one soldier was announced earlier and was said to be the first Israeli casualty since the ground operation in Lebanon began.
Four soldiers and one officer were seriously wounded today.
Hezbollah said its fighters clashed with Israeli soldiers at two locations in Lebanon near the border with Israel.
It was also said that several soldiers were killed and wounded by a single explosion.
The Israeli military said ground forces supported the airstrikes that killed the extremists, but did not say where.
Israeli media reports that infantry and tank units are operating in southern Lebanon.
Fighting between Israeli soldiers and Hezbollah fighters continues in southern Lebanon, both sides said, and Israel has sent additional troops and artillery to the border area.
In Gaza, the almost year-long war that has caused a wider conflict continues and there is no end in sight.
Israeli ground operations and airstrikes have killed at least 51 people in Khan Younis, Gaza, including women and children, Palestinian health officials said.
The escalation on several fronts has increased the fear of a wider war in the Middle East, which would involve Iran even more after yesterday's rocket attack by Israel, an ally of the US, which it militarily supports.
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UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres condemned Iran's missile attack on Israel, saying that the deadly cycle of violence must end.
"Time is running out," he said at the UN Security Council session.
The 15-member council met after the killing of the leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah in an Israeli airstrike on Friday, the start of an Israeli ground military operation against the extremist group and an Iranian attack on Israel that heightened fears of a wider war in the Middle East.
"I again strongly condemn yesterday's massive attack on Israel by Iran," Guterres said.
Earlier today, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said that he was banning Guterres from entering the country, because he did not "unequivocally" condemn the Iranian missile attack on Israel, agencies reported.
In a letter to the UN Security Council on Tuesday, Iran justified its attack on Israel as self-defense based on Article 52 of the UN Charter, citing "aggressive actions" by Israel, including violations of Iranian sovereignty.
"Iran fully agrees with the principle of distinction based on international law, it has only targeted regime military and security installations in defensive missile strikes," Iran wrote to the Council.
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The Israeli military announced that Iran managed to hit Israeli air bases with missiles during yesterday's attack, but that the attack was ineffective, Israeli media reported.
The rockets damaged offices and "maintenance areas" at bases that do not affect the functioning of the Israeli Air Force (IAF).
"No IAF aircraft were damaged in the attack," The Times of Israel reported, and that the air force continued to attack targets in Lebanon and Gaza after the Iranian attack.
One person died in the occupied West Bank from fragments of an intercepted rocket, and two people were slightly wounded by shrapnel in Tel Aviv. These are the only known victims of Iran's attack.
This morning, Iranian Brigadier General Aziz Nasirzadeh claimed that 90 percent of Iranian rockets could penetrate Israeli defenses and that only military facilities were targeted.
Israel and its allies immediately judged the Iranian attack as a failure.
However, the fact that many of the total of 181 missiles fired in two large waves from Iran managed to reach their targets shows that doubts about the effectiveness of sophisticated Israeli anti-aircraft defenses are justified, comments the British newspaper "The Guardian".
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Israel's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Israel Katz, today declared United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres "persona non grata" and banned him from entering Israel.
In a statement, Katz accused Guterres of being biased and told him that he was unwelcome in Israel.
He added that he would be prevented from entering Israel.
The decision is expected to further deepen the rift between Israel and the UN.
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Gaza's health ministry, which is controlled by Hamas, said at least 51 people were killed and another 82 wounded in a major Israeli air and ground operation in the southern city of Khan Younis.
The Israeli military has yet to comment on the military operation that began yesterday.
Israel has been attacking militant strongholds across Gaza for a year, since Hamas invaded the country on October 7 and started the war.
However, attention is currently focused on Lebanon, where Israel has launched ground operations against Hezbollah, and on Iran, which attacked Israel with ballistic missiles last night.
Hezbollah said its fighters clashed with Israeli troops in the Lebanese border town of Odaiseh and forced them to retreat.
There has been no comment from the Israeli military or independent confirmation of the "first ground battle" since Israeli troops crossed the border this Sunday.
Israeli media reported that infantry and tank units were operating in southern Lebanon after the army sent thousands of additional soldiers and artillery to the border.
The army warned residents to leave another 24 villages in southern Lebanon after a similar announcement a day earlier. Hundreds of thousands have already fled their homes as the conflict intensified.
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