Regional escalation feared as Israel hints at military ops across Middle East

Jerusalem: Israel is engaged in a “multi-front war”, its Defence Minister Yoav Galant has said, hinting at military operations across the Middle East as the war in Gaza showed new signs of a dangerous regional escalation, a media report said.

Speaking in the Parliament on Tuesday, Gallant said Israel was “coming under attack from seven theatres: Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Judea and Samaria [an Israeli term for the West Bank], Iraq, Yemen and Iran".

"We have already responded and taken action in six of these theatres,” he told the Knesset, without specifying, The Guardian reported.

Iran-allied militias around the Middle East have attacked Israel and US military installations across the region since Hamas launched its devastating attack on southern Israel on October 7, killing 1,140 people and taking up to 250 hostages.

Gallant’s comments on Tuesday came as the war in Gaza showed new signs of spreading outside Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Earlier in the day, Egypt said a drone was shot down near the Red Sea resort city of Dahab, the second such occurrence in a month.

The drone’s origin was not immediately clear, but Yemen’s Houthi rebels, which are aligned to Iran, have disrupted global trade in the Red Sea with attacks on international vessels and have launched drones and missiles towards Israel, The Guardian reported.

Explosions in the Red Sea off the coast of Yemen were also reported on Tuesday.

On Saturday, the US defence department had explicitly blamed Iran for the first time for a drone attack targeting a chemical tanker in the Indian Ocean.