Jerusalem, 13 Oct

Iran on Sunday warned the US to keep its military forces out of Israel.

The comments came in a post on the social platform X and referred to the possibility that the US might send one of its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense systems to Israel.

A move of the complex system, known by the acronym THAAD, to Israel would involve the deployment of soldiers to operate it.

Israel has been escalating its campaign against Hezbollah with waves of heavy airstrikes across Lebanon and a ground invasion at the border after a year of exchanges of fire. Israel is now at war with Hamas in Gaza and Hamas' ally Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Israel's offensive in Gaza has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not say how many were fighters but say women and children make up more than half of the fatalities.

The war has destroyed large areas of Gaza and displaced about 90 per cent of its population of 2.3 million people.

It's been a year since Hamas-led militants blew holes in Israel's security fence and stormed into army bases and farming communities, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. They are still holding about 100 captives inside Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon of serving as “human shields” for Hezbollah after Israeli strikes wounded five of them in recent days. The Israeli military has warned UNIFIL to evacuate southern Lebanon as it carries out air and ground operations against Hezbollah militants, but the peacekeepers have so far refused.

Netanyahu said Sunday that their refusal to clear out “has the effect of providing Hezbollah terrorists with human shields,” saying they had become “hostages of Hezbollah”. -PTI