Its supreme leader Iran Ali Khamenei swore yesterday Saturday that his country will retaliate in “painful” fashion every attack by the US and Israel, with the Jewish state announcing that it had kidnapped a “high-ranking” Lebanese Hezbollah official in a special forces operation.

At the same time, the US warned Iran against launching another attack against Israel, adding that Washington would not be able to contain Israel if Iran strikes again, US news website Axios reported, citing a US official and a Israeli former official.

The Israeli army continues its wars against Hezbollah in Lebanon and against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. In the northern part of the Palestinian enclave, the situation resembles the “Apocalypse”, after a year of war and almost a month after the start of new intensive ground operations.

With the November 5 US presidential election just around the corner and despite international pressure, efforts to end the hostilities remain futile.

Israel has vowed to destroy Hezbollah and launched devastating large-scale military operations in the Gaza Strip after the Palestinian Islamist movement’s unprecedented raid on southern sectors of its territory on October 7, 2023. It also says it wants to neutralize Hezbollah on its northern border. , more than a year after the Lebanese movement opened a front with Israel to support its ally Hamas on October 8, 2023.

With this explosive background, the US announced the day before Friday the next deployment of additional military assets in the Middle East; including anti-ballistic missile systems, fighters, aerial refueling aircraft and bombers, with a horizon “in the coming months”, for the “defense of Israel” and as a warning to Tehran.

Already yesterday B-52 Stratofortress strategic bombers arrived in the area, the US military announced last night.

“The enemies, both the US and the Zionist regime (including Israel) must know that they will surely suffer painful retribution for their actions against Iran and the resistance front,” Ali Khamenei, the whose country has been involved in recent months in a cycle of attacks and reprisals with Israel.

On October 26, the Israeli air force targeted military installations in Iran in retaliation for the firing of some 200 Iranian missiles at Israeli territory on October 1.

An Israeli officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said special forces had “captured a high-ranking Hezbollah official” in an unprecedented operation in Batroun, north of Beirut.

A military source in Lebanon spoke of the abduction of a “civilian”.

The man — whose name was not released by either side — is “an expert in his field,” according to the Israeli officer.

The Israeli army at the same time continue bombing Lebanon, among them one in the southern suburbs of Beirut, a stronghold of Hezbollah, which resulted in the loss of at least one person’s life, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health.

The Lebanese Shiite movement, for its part, announced that it launched a barrage of rockets against targets in northern Israel and a military base near Tel Aviv.

At least 19 people were injured in Tira (central) when a projectile hit a property, Israeli authorities said yesterday, saying they had intercepted rockets.

Since September 23rd, the Israeli air force has been launching massive bombardments against Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon, and since September 30th, they have been conducting ground operations in the southern part of the country. Israel says it wants the Shiite movement in the border areas to be neutralized to stop its rocket and drone attacks and to allow the return of some 60,000 citizens of its northern part.

At least 1,930 people have been killed in Lebanon since September 23, according to an AFP count based on official data.

In the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army bombed Jabalia, Beit Lahia (north) and Nuseirat (central), where three Palestinians were killed, according to civil protection. He spoke of about 900 “terrorists” dead since the beginning of last month.

The director general of UNICEF, Catherine Russell, denounced the death of “more than 30 children” in 48 hours in Jabalia in a statement yesterday Friday.

Meanwhile, polio vaccination began yesterday in the northern part of the besieged enclave, where Israeli ground operations have been focused since October 6, in order to prevent the regrouping of Hamas units.

The World Health Organization (WHO) started a vaccination campaign in the Gaza Strip on September 1, after the first case of polio in 25 years was confirmed in the enclave.

“The Sheikh Radwan primary health center in northern Gaza was hit (…) while parents were taking their children to receive the life-saving polio vaccine, in an area where a humanitarian pause (of operations) had been agreed to allow it to continue of vaccination”, announced yesterday the head of the WHO, Dr. Tedros Andanom Ghebresus.

“The attacks in Jabalia, on a vaccination center and against a member of UNICEF are new examples of the serious consequences of the blows that are unleashed indiscriminately against civilians in the Gaza Strip,” added Mrs. Russell, underlining that a worker of the agency who participated in the vaccination campaign was targeted shots while driving, without being injured.

A member of civil protection in Gaza told AFP that at least three people were injured by debris when an Israeli drone fired a missile that hit a wall of a health center in western Gaza City.

When contacted by AFP, the Israeli army denied hitting the health center, saying it was involved in coordinating the vaccination campaign.

Besides, he spoke of two “missiles” launched from the northern Lane of Gaza and fell in southern Israel, causing no injuries.

The devastating, wide-scale Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip have claimed the lives of at least 43,314 people, the majority of them civilians, according to the Hamas Health Ministry, and caused colossal material damage and humanitarian devastation.

Hamas’ raid on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, which triggered the war, killed 1,206 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data, which includes hostages killed in captivity or were already dead when they were taken to Gaza. Of the 251 people abducted, 97 remain hostages in the Gaza Strip, but 34 of the latter have been declared dead by the Israeli army.

The Israeli army announced yesterday that two more of its soldiers were killed in Gaza. It says it has suffered a total of 370 casualties since it began ground operations in the enclave on October 27, 2023.