The Middle East crisis

The Middle East crisis • Israel-Iran
Iran: Neighbors have given us guarantees against attack

Iran's neighboring countries have promised that they will not allow their land or airspace to be used to attack Iran. This is stated by the Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Tuesday after information was leaked that Israel is planning an attack.

-⁠ All our neighbors have guaranteed that they will not let their land or airspace be used against the Islamic Republic of Iran, he said at a press conference in Kuwait, according to AFP.

In the past, Israel has threatened to carry out attacks on Iran in retaliation for Iran firing several robots over the country on October 1.

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The Middle East Crisis • Israel-Hezbollah
Reports of new attacks in Lebanon after deadly day

After Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel in the morning, the fighting in Lebanon has escalated, TT reports. Hezbollah states in a statement that an Israeli Merkava tank was fired upon and caught fire in southern Lebanon on Tuesday.

On Tuesday morning, Israel ordered all residents of a community near the city of Tire in southern Lebanon to evacuate. Later, Lebanon's state news agency NNA reported that Israel launched a "series of attacks."

Tuesday's reports of new attacks come after an intense and deadly day. Israel claims that on Monday it attacked the headquarters of Hezbollah's air division and that 15 members of the militia were killed in a command center in southern Lebanon. 14 people were killed in an attack near one of Beirut's main public hospitals, according to Lebanon's health ministry. According to the Israeli military IDF, targets near the Harir hospital were attacked, but the hospital itself was not affected.

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The Middle East crisis  The Gaza war
Expert: Not obvious that Hamas knows where the hostages are

About 60 hostages are believed to be still alive in Gaza. But the question is where they are and whether even senior Hamas commanders know.

The question has been raised since Hamas commander Osama Hamdan, who is in Beirut, told CNN this summer that "no one has any idea" how many of them are alive.

- There is no map of where they are, says Hamas expert Magnus Ranstorp to TT.

According to Israeli estimates, the 60 hostages are likely to have been divided into smaller groups and are being kept hidden by local cells or individuals. According to Ranstorp, there must be people who have the overall picture, or at least those who can get in touch with the individual groups.

But communication will certainly take a long time and there is also a risk that those responsible for the hostages will be locally arrested or killed in Israeli attacks, he believes. Therefore, according to him, it would be difficult to release all the hostages at the same time.