WAs Israel's army continues fighting in the Gaza Strip and as tensions rise throughout the Middle East, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing sharp headwinds at home. Thousands of people demonstrated in Israel on Saturday against him and his government and demanded an immediate end to the war in order to free the more than 100 hostages held by Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip. In the evening, army spokesman Daniel Hagari presented photos of an underground dungeon where the terrorists had held hostages “in stuffy air with little oxygen and terrible humidity that makes breathing difficult.”
Meanwhile, according to US information, a military base used by US soldiers has been attacked in Iraq. Iran-backed fighters in western Iraq fired several rockets at the Ain Al-Assad base, the responsible regional command of the US military said on the X platform, formerly Twitter, on Saturday. Most of the rockets were intercepted by the air defense, others hit the base. A number of US soldiers are being medically examined. At least one Iraqi soldier was wounded.
In response to Israel's military operation in Gaza, pro-Iranian militias have increased their attacks on US bases in Iraq and Syria in recent weeks. The attack on the Ain Al-Assad base came just hours after a suspected Israeli air strike in the Syrian capital Damascus that killed five members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, including four “military advisers” and a soldier, the elite unit said.
Iran threatens retaliation
While Israel's military initially did not comment, Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi threatened the arch-enemy with retaliation. The Islamic Republic will not leave the “crime of the Zionist regime” unanswered, state radio quoted him as saying. The air strike in Syria and the attack on the military base in Iraq used by the USA are part of a whole series of attacks and retaliatory strikes in the Middle East since the beginning of the Gaza war a good three months ago and are fueling concerns that the conflict is becoming worse could escalate into a larger regional war.
The US is pushing for the creation of an independent Palestinian state to resolve the crisis. On Saturday evening, however, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu rejected US President Joe Biden's claim that a two-state solution after the Gaza war was feasible with him as head of government. “I will not compromise on full Israeli security control over the entire area west of the Jordan – and that is contradictory to a Palestinian state,” Netanyahu wrote on Platform X (formerly Twitter).
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