Israel pounds Gaza as Iran accuses it of seeking to ‘expand war’

PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES: Israel kept up its bombardment of Gaza Thursday (Aug 8), killing more than 18 people in strikes on two schools, the emergency services said, as Iran accused it of wanting to spread war in the Middle East.
Western governments pressed efforts to defuse tensions in the region, sky-high after the killing of two top militant leaders in attacks blamed on Israel that the militants and their Iranian backers have vowed to avenge.
Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli strikes hit two schools in Gaza City, killing more than 18 people. The Israeli military said it struck Hamas command centres.
Iran’s acting foreign minister, Ali Bagheri, told AFP that Israel had committed “a strategic mistake” by killing Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last week – hours after the assassination in Beirut of Hezbollah’s military chief.
Although Israel has not admitted to killing Haniyeh, Iran and its allies have vowed to retaliate, setting the region on edge as the Gaza war raged on into its 11th month.
Israel seeks “to expand tension, war and conflict to other countries”, but has neither “the capacity nor the strength” to fight Iran, Bagheri said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking at a military base on Wednesday, said Israel was “prepared both defensively and offensively” and “determined” to defend itself.
The front pages of some of Israel’s leading newspapers on Thursday cited “assessments” that Iran may be rethinking its course of action, reportedly in part due to US pressure.
Officials and leaders in the Middle East and beyond have called for calm, with Britain’s minister for international development, Anneliese Dodds, telling AFP on a visit to Jordan: “We must see a de-escalation.”
The United States, which has sent extra warships and jets to the region, has urged both Iran and Israel to avoid an escalation.
France’s President Emmanuel Macron spoke Wednesday with his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian and later with Israel’s Netanyahu, telling both to “avoid a cycle of reprisals”, according to the French presidency.
Israel’s military chief Herzi Halevi told troops “we are not stopping” targeting the leaders of “our most dangerous enemies”, vowing to “find” and “attack” Hamas’s newly-appointed chief Yahya Sinwar too, according to an army statement.
The Hamas attack that triggered the war in Gaza resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Palestinian militants seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 39 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,699 people, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.
Netanyahu, who has resisted making an apology for security failures over Israel’s worst-ever attack, said in an interview published Thursday that he was “sorry, deeply, that something like this happened”.