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Iran and Israel traded missiles and airstrikes on Saturday, the day after Israel launched a sweeping air offensive against its old enemy, killing commanders and scientists and bombing nuclear sites in a stated bid to stop it building an atomic weapon.
In Tehran, Iranian state TV reported that around 60 people, including 20 children, had been killed in an attack on a housing complex.
The Israeli military has carried out several waves of air strikes targeting nuclear facilities and military sites across Iran, killing senior Iranian military officials and nuclear scientists in a large-scale attack that raises fears of an all-out war in the region.
In a prerecorded video message posted early Friday morning, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the strikes were aimed at hurting Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and ballistic missile factories.
At least 44 Palestinians, including children and women, were killed and several others injured in fresh Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, medics said.
Six people, including a child, lost their lives in Israeli shelling in Jabalia and Khan Younis in northern and southern Gaza, a medical source told Anadolu.
On Thursday, the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, announced that its fighters are engaged in “fierce close-range combat” with Israeli occupation forces advancing into eastern Rafah, in southern Gaza.
In a statement on Telegram, Al-Qassam said:“We are engaged in fierce, point-blank clashes with enemy soldiers and vehicles in the incursion zone in the Al-Juneina neighborhood, east of Rafah City.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday an expanded offensive against Palestinian militant group Hamas would be “intensive” after his security cabinet approved plans that may include seizing the Gaza Strip and controlling aid.
However an Israeli defence official said the operation would not be launched before U.S. President Donald Trump concludes his visit next week to the Middle East.