The Israeli military confirmed that four of its servicemen were killed in fighting in the northern Gaza Strip, and one officer was seriously injured injured, reported Reuters, quoted by BTA.
Another Israeli soldier has died from wounds sustained in combat in southern Lebanon.
This brings the total number of Israeli servicemen killed since October 2023 to 777.
The Chief of the Israeli General Staff General Herzi Halevi threatened to inflict "very strong" attack on Iran if Tehran retaliates to the Israeli attack on military targets carried out on Saturday, reported Agence France-Presse, quoted by BTA.
"If Iran makes the mistake of firing another volley of missiles at Israel, we will again know how to hit Iran (...) and we will hit very, very hard,", emphasized Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi. Addressing service members involved in the Oct. 26 strike, he said the military did not strike specific targets in Iran that day in case "we may be forced to strike again.
"This story is not over," the general added, according to a communique released by the army.
On Saturday, Israeli fighter jets carried out airstrikes on military targets in Iran in response to Tehran's October 1 missile attack on Israel. According to the Iranian leadership, it was undertaken in response to the assassination of the leaders of the Lebanese organization "Hezbollah". and the Palestinian "Hamas" - Islamist movements supported by Tehran.
According to Iran, the Israeli attack caused "limited damage".
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that a German passport does not protect anyone from punishment, especially terrorists. Aragchi's position comes a day after Iran executed an Iranian with a German passport who was convicted of terrorism, the Iranian news agency IRNA reported, quoted by BTA.
In a post on the social network "X" Araghchi urged the German government to stop hiding behind hypocritical human rights slogans, recalling the chemical weapons supplied by Germany to Saddam Hussein's regime during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.
Germany has protested the execution of Jamshid Sharmahd, the head of a US-based terrorist group who had German citizenship. The German government recalled its ambassador in Tehran and summoned the Iranian chargé d'affaires to Berlin in protest, notes IRNA.
"Iranian citizen Jamshid Sharmahd openly and shamelessly led a terrorist attack on a mosque that killed 14 innocent people - including women and children. More than 200 people were injured. The evidence is public and available to everyone," Aragchi said.
"The German passport does not provide impunity for anyone, least of all a terrorist and a criminal,”, he added.
Iran's top diplomat has accused the German government of complicity in the Israeli genocide in Gaza, pointing out that Germany is the second largest supplier of lethal weapons to the Israeli regime.
"Look around. Even your own people scoff at your arrogant claims of human rights,”, Aragchi wrote.
The UN stressed that if Israel implements the new laws, which cut ties with the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, the Israeli government will have to meet their needs under international law, the Associated Press reported, quoted by BTA. >
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the UN has no other alternative agency. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees was vital during the war between Israel and "Hamas" in Gaza and Israel's laws banning it will "have a devastating impact on the humanitarian situation" in the Palestinian territories, emphasized UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric.
The UN agencies for children, health and migration also stressed that the agency is key to the world body's operations in Gaza, where people rely on emergency food aid during the more than year-long war that has killed tens of thousands of people and much of the enclave was reduced to ruins.
The UN is encouraged by the statements of support for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, Dujarric added. "We will be very grateful to the efforts of each member state to help us overcome this obstacle,", he noted.
Israel alleges that some of the agency's 13,000 personnel in Gaza were involved in attacks by "Hamas" of October 7, 2023, which triggered the war in Gaza. According to Israeli officials, hundreds of agency employees have links to the extremists, and the Israeli armed forces say they have found weapons of "Hamas" in or under agency facilities.
Two laws passed by Israel on Monday could prevent the agency from continuing its work.
Even the US, Israel's closest ally, has joined many governments and humanitarian organizations in opposing the legislation, which takes effect in three months. Yesterday, Guterres sent a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu outlining his concerns and raising issues related to international law, Dujarric added.
In its capacity as an occupying power, according to international humanitarian law, Israel is obliged to ensure that the needs of the Palestinians are met, including for food, health and education, the UN spokesman stressed. If Israel is unable to meet these needs, it is obliged to allow and facilitate the activities of the United Nations, including humanitarian agencies, to meet these needs.
"If the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees ceases to function - and for us there is no alternative - Israel will have to fill the vacuum," said Dujarric. "Otherwise he will violate international law."
"Instead of condemning the Palestinian Refugee Agency for turning a blind eye to, and in some cases participating in, terrorism, the UN instead condemns Israel," Israel's UN representative Danny Danon responded. According to him, the agency is not interested in providing humanitarian aid to Gaza and is simply "an arm of "Hamas" operating under the cover of the United Nations".
"Israel will continue to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza in accordance with international law," Danon added. However, the Palestine Refugee Agency has "failed in its mandate and is no longer the right agency for the job".