A top Iranian commander warned Israel on Tuesday it will face “another shockwave” of attacks by militant groups if the country doesn’t halt its relentless bombardment of Gaza.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards deputy commander-in-chief, Ali Fadavi, made the chilling threat after an attack on a refugee camp took out a top Hamas commander.
“The resistance front’s shocks against the Zionist regime will continue until this ‘cancerous tumor’ is eradicated from the world map,” Fadavi said, according to Iranian news agency Fars.
Meanwhile, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, blamed the US for Israel’s retaliatory strikes on the enclave — as he called the assault a “genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.”
“Our numerous intelligence reports show that the US is formulating the Zionist regime’s current policy and what is being done is governed by US policymaking. The US must be held responsible for this situation,” Khamenei said in a speech posted on X.
“No one can confront Muslims and the resistance forces if the Zionist regime’s crimes against Palestinians continue. The bombardment of Gaza must stop immediately,” Khamenei said as he addressed a group of students in Tehran.
“The world is witnessing the Zionist regime’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.”
The comments also came as an airstrike on Tuesday killed about 500 Palestinians at a Gaza City hospital crammed with patients and displaced people, Hamas-run health authorities in the enclave said.
The strike on the Al-Ahli al-Arabi hospital was the bloodiest single incident in Gaza since the war broke out on Oct. 7.
“There are scores of dismembered and crushed bodies, baths of blood,” Izzat El-Reshiq, a senior Hamas member, told Reuters.
Israel’s military has denied responsibility for the attack, saying military intelligence suggested the hospital was hit by a failed rocket launch by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad military group.
“An analysis of IDF operational systems indicates that a barrage of rockets was fired by terrorists in Gaza, passing in close proximity to the Al Ahli hospital in Gaza at the time it was hit,” an Israel Defense Forces spokesperson said.
“Intelligence from multiple sources we have in our hands indicates that Islamic Jihad is responsible for the failed rocket launch which hit the hospital in Gaza.”
Meanwhile, a separate Israeli strike killed dozens of civilians and at least one senior Hamas figure in central Gaza Tuesday.
Ayman Nofal, a top commander in Hamas’ military wing known as the Al-Qassam Brigades, was taken out in a strike that targeted the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, Hamas confirmed in a Telegram post that hailed him as a “martyr.”
Health authorities in Gaza say at least 3,000 people have now been killed and another 9,000 wounded on their side in Israel’s 11-day bombardment. Israel says its own death toll has surpassed 1,400.
The latest strikes came as the US was trying to convince Israel to allow the delivery of supplies to civilians, aid groups, and hospitals in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Tzahi Hanegbi, head of Israel’s National Security Council, suggested late Tuesday that entry of aid depended on the return of roughly 200 hostages currently held by Hamas.
“The return of the hostages, which is sacred in our eyes, is a key component in any humanitarian efforts,” Hanegbi said.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden was preparing to head to the region Wednesday as he and other world leaders tried to prevent the war from spilling into a broader regional conflict.
Earlier Tuesday, King Abdullah II of Jordan shut down the prospect of allowing Palestinian refugees fleeing northern Gaza into his country or Egypt, calling it a “red line” — amid a diplomatic campaign to establish safe zones within the besieged enclave.
“There will be no refugees in Jordan and no refugees in Egypt,” the king said, adding that the humanitarian situation must be contained inside Gaza and the West Bank.
“That is a red line, because I think that is the plan by certain of the usual suspects to try and create de facto issues on the ground.”
With Post wires