World
Israel appears to have been behind drone strike on Iran factory: US official
Israel appears to have been behind an overnight drone attack on a military factory in Iran, Reuters quoted a US official said on Sunday.
Iran claimed to have intercepted drones that struck a military industry target near the central city of Isfahan, and said there were no casualties or serious damage.
The extent of damage could not be independently ascertained. Iranian state media released footage showing a flash in the sky and emergency vehicles at the scene, read the report.
A spokesperson for the Israeli military declined to comment. Arch-foe Israel has long said it is willing to strike Iranian targets if diplomacy fails to curb Tehran's nuclear or missile programmes, but it has a policy of withholding comment on specific incidents.
Pentagon spokesperson Brigadier General Patrick Ryder said no US military forces were involved in strikes in Iran, but declined to comment further, Reuters reported.
That US officials were pointing to an Israeli role in the attack was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, citing several unidentified sources. One US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters it did appear that Israel was involved. Several other US officials declined to comment, beyond saying that Washington played no role.
Tehran did not formally ascribe blame for what Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian called a "cowardly" attack aimed at creating "insecurity" in Iran. But state TV broadcast comments by a lawmaker, Hossein Mirzaie, saying there was "strong speculation" Israel was behind it.
The attack came amid tension between Iran and the West over Tehran's nuclear activity and its supply of arms - including long-range "suicide drones" - for Russia's war in Ukraine, as well as months of anti-government demonstrations at home.
The extent of the damage could not be independently confirmed. Iran's Defence Ministry said the explosion caused only minor damage and no casualties.
"Such actions will not impact our experts' determination to progress in our peaceful nuclear work," Amirabdollahian told reporters in televised remarks.
An Israeli strike on Iran would be the first under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since he returned to office last month at the helm of the most right-wing government in Israeli history, Reuters reported.
In Ukraine, which accuses Iran of supplying hundreds of drones to Russia to attack civilian targets in Ukrainian cities far from the front, a senior aide to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy linked the incident directly to the war there.
"Explosive night in Iran," Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted. "Did warn you."
Iran has acknowledged sending drones to Russia but says they were sent before Moscow's invasion of Ukraine last year. Moscow denies its forces use Iranian drones in Ukraine, although many have been shot down and recovered there.
"Around 23:30 (2000 GMT) on Saturday night, an unsuccessful attack was carried out using micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs) on one of the ministry's workshop sites," the Defence Ministry said in a statement carried by state TV.
It said one drone was shot down "and the other two were caught in defence traps and blew up. It caused only minor damage to the roof of a workshop building. There were no casualties."
A military official in the region said given the location of the strike in central Iran and the size of the drones, it was likely that the attack was staged from within Iran's borders.
Separately, IRNA reported early on Sunday a massive fire at a motor oil factory in an industrial zone near the northwestern city of Tabriz. It later said oil leakage caused that blaze, citing a local official.
Iran has accused Israel in the past of planning attacks using agents inside Iranian territory. In July, Tehran said it had arrested a sabotage team made up of Kurdish militants working for Israel who planned to blow up a "sensitive" defence industry centre in Isfahan.
Several Iranian nuclear sites are located in Isfahan province, including Natanz, centrepiece of Iran’s uranium enrichment programme, which Iran accuses Israel of sabotaging in 2021. There have been a number of explosions and fires around Iranian military, nuclear and industrial sites in recent years, Reuters reported.
Talks between Iran and world powers to revive a 2015 nuclear deal have stalled since September. Under the pact, abandoned by Washington in 2018 under then-President Donald Trump, Tehran agreed to limit nuclear work in return for easing of sanctions.
Iran's clerical rulers have also faced internal turmoil in recent months, with a crackdown on widespread anti-establishment demonstrations spurred by the death in custody of a woman held for allegedly violating its strict Islamic dress code.
World
Israeli airstrikes kill at least 31 people in Gaza, medics say
Hamas has repeatedly denied using civilian facilities such as hospitals, schools, and mosques, for military purposes.
Israeli airstrikes killed at least 31 people in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, Palestinian medics said, with nearly half of the deaths in northern areas where the army has waged a month-long campaign it says is aimed at preventing Hamas from regrouping, Reuters reported.
Palestinians said the new aerial and ground offensives and forced evacuations were "ethnic cleansing" aimed at emptying two northern Gaza towns and a refugee camp of their population in order to create buffer zones. Israel denies this, saying it is fighting Hamas militants who launch attacks from there.
Medics said at least 13 Palestinians were killed in separate attacks on houses in Beit Lahiya town and Jabalia, the largest of the enclave's eight historic camps and the focus of the army's new offensive.
The rest were killed in separate Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City and in southern areas, including one in Khan Younis, which health officials said had killed eight people, including four children.
Later on Sunday, health officials at the Kamal Adwan Hospital near Beit Lahiya said the facility came under Israeli tank fire and that one child hospitalized at the hospital was critically wounded.
Hussam Abu Safiya, the hospital's director said the incident took place after a delegation from the World Health Organization visited the facility and evacuated some patients.
He said while evacuating the wounded was important, it was more important to dispatch specialized medical teams to north Gaza hospitals that have become overwhelmed by the number of casualties.
Abu Safiya said the tank fire hit the water supplies, the courtyard, and the neonatal intensive care unit.
COGAT, the Israeli army's Palestinian civilian affairs agency, said the explosion resulted from an explosive device planted by Palestinian militants and not an Israeli attack.
"The terrorist organizations continue to exploit civilian infrastructure, medical facilities, and international aid organizations for their terror activities," a COGAT statement said late on Sunday.
Hamas has repeatedly denied using civilian facilities such as hospitals, schools, and mosques, for military purposes.
On Saturday, the Israeli military sent a new army division to Jabalia to join two other operating battalions, a statement said. It said hundreds of Palestinian militants have been killed in the "battles" since the raid began on Oct. 5, read the report.
Meanwhile, COGAT said it facilitated the launch of the second round of a polio vaccination campaign in northern Gaza on Saturday and that 58,604 children have received a dose.
The Gaza health ministry said Israel's military offensive in northern Gaza was stopping them from vaccinating thousands of children in Jabalia, Beit Lahiya, and Beit Hanoun.
It said one clinic had come under Israeli fire while parents brought their children for the anti-polio dose on Saturday and that four children had been injured.
The head of the World Health Organization said in a statement the clinic incident took place despite a humanitarian pause agreed upon by the two warring parties, Israel and Hamas, to allow the vaccination campaign.
"A @WHO team was at the site just before. This attack, during a humanitarian pause, jeopardises the sanctity of health protection for children and may deter parents from bringing their children for vaccination," Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a post on X on Saturday.
"These vital humanitarian-area-specific pauses must be absolutely respected. Ceasefire!" he said.
The Israeli military, which had no immediate comment on Tedros' remarks, said it was checking the report about the clinic.
A larger ceasefire that would end the war and see the release of Israeli and foreign hostages held captive in Gaza as well as Palestinians jailed by Israel remains remote due to disagreements between Hamas and Israel.
Hamas wants an agreement to end the war permanently, refusing recent offers for temporary truces, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says war can only end when Hamas is eradicated, Reuters reported.
The war erupted after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel's retaliatory offensives have killed more than 43,300 Palestinians and reduced most of Gaza to rubble.
World
Russia targets Kyiv in hours-long drone attack
Ukraine’s military reported on Saturday that air defences had destroyed 39 out of 71 Russian drones that had been launched, and that another 21 had been “locationally lost”.
Russia unleashed its latest overnight drone strike on Ukraine, targeting the capital Kyiv in an attack that lasted into midday and wounded at least one person, city officials said on Saturday.
Debris from downed drones struck six city districts, wounding a police officer, damaging residential buildings and starting fires, according to city military administrator Serhiy Popko, Reuters reported.
"Another night. Another air-raid alert. Another drone attack. The armed forces of the Russian Federation attacked Kyiv again according to their old and familiar tactics," Popko wrote on social media.
All the drones aimed at Kyiv had been shot down, he said.
Ukrainian energy provider DTEK said a high-voltage line powering the capital and two distribution networks in the Kyiv region had been damaged.
DTEK said in a statement that electricity had mostly been restored and that repairs were underway.
Reuters correspondents reported hearing explosions in and around the city during an air-raid alert that lasted more than five hours. One drone was seen flying low over the city amid the din of automatic-weapons fire.
Ukraine's military reported on Saturday that air defences had destroyed 39 out of 71 Russian drones that had been launched, and that another 21 had been "locationally lost".
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said strikes were also reported in the central Poltava and northeastern Sumy and Kharkiv regions, read the report.
"This year, we have faced the threat of 'Shahed' drones almost every night — sometimes in the morning, and even during the day," he wrote on social media, referring to the Iranian-made attack drones used by Russia.
Russian forces have carried out regular airstrikes on Ukrainian towns and cities behind the front lines of the war which began when Russia invaded its neighbour in February 2022.
Kyiv's military said on Friday that Moscow's forces had launched more than 2,000 drones at civilian and military targets across Ukraine in October alone.
Russia has denied aiming at civilians and said power facilities are legitimate targets when they are part of Ukrainian military infrastructure.
World
Nineteen reported injured in central Israel after projectile launch
Nineteen people in central Israel's Sharon region were injured, the Israeli police said, after the military reported the launch of three projectiles from Lebanon into Israeli territory early on Saturday.
The national ambulance service previously reported that seven people in the central Israeli town of Tira were injured, Reuters reported.
The Israeli military said that sirens sounded in several areas of central Israel after the projectile launch. Some projectiles had been intercepted, it said.
"A fallen projectile was most likely identified in the area," the army added, noting that details were under investigation.
The national ambulance service and local media said the injuries in Tira ranged from mild to moderate, while two other people suffered stress symptoms.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq said later in a statement it had launched drones at a "vital target" in northern Israel. It was not immediately clear if the group's action was related to the injuries.
Fighting in Lebanon has escalated dramatically in recent weeks between Israeli forces and the Lebanese Hezbollah group.
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