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Herzog: Terrorists Slain in Beirut Were Plotting Oct. 7-Style Attack
Israeli President Isaac Herzog looks on during a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, not pictured, in Washington, DC, on Oct. 25, 2022. Stefani Reynolds/Pool via REUTERS
JNS.org – Hezbollah leaders killed in an airstrike on Friday were planning the same type of invasion Hamas carried out on Oct. 7 farther south, Israeli President Isaac Herzog said in an interview with Britain’s Sky News on Sunday.
“We do not want to get into a war with Lebanon, but Lebanon has been hijacked by a terror organization which is also a political party in Lebanon called Hezbollah,” the president told senior news presenter Sir Trevor Phillips via satellite feed from Jerusalem.
“It’s been armed to its teeth by the Iranian empire of evil, and all of these leaders who were eradicated on Friday by the Israeli attack, all of these leaders were meeting together in order to launch the same horrific, horrendous attack that we had on October 7 by Hamas, by burning Israelis, butchering them, raping their women, abducting and taking hostage old people and young, and little babies,” Herzog continued.
“So this is exactly the same plan that they’ve been planning for years under the empire of evil of Iran. So we are fighting, actually the war for the entire free world,” the president said.
On Friday, Israel bombed a building in Beirut, killing more than a dozen Hezbollah officers including Ibrahim Aqil, 61, who was the second top commander of Hezbollah killed since Oct. 7. This was preceded earlier in the week by a series of communication device explosions that killed dozens and wounded thousands of Hezbollah terrorists across Lebanon.
IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in a video statement on Friday that Aqil and the Radwan Force commanders at the meeting were discussing plans to carry out an Oct. 7-style invasion of Israel, which they called “Conquer the Galilee.”
“These terrorists planned to do in northern Israel what Hamas did in southern Israel on Oct. 7,” Hagari said.
A source close to Hezbollah confirmed to Al–Monitor that the meeting in the Dahiya neighborhood of Beirut was convened to study “plans for a ground operation in the heart of the occupied territories [i.e., Israel]” in response to the communication device attacks.
During the Sky News interview, Herzog stressed that “we are working to change this equation, meaning we have to bring our hostages back from Gaza, and we have to make sure that this attack does not recur from Gaza, and we have to make sure that this attack does not recur again from Lebanon. That’s all there is. It’s very simple, and life can go on in a peaceful manner on an internationally recognized boundary between Israel and Lebanon.”
Herzog also had choice words from the government in London, which hasn’t always seen eye-to-eye with Jerusalem during the campaign against Hamas and other Iranian-supported terrorist groups.
“I believe our friends should understand that we are fighting their war too. In the long term, you have to understand that there is an empire of evil which really thinks and believes as part of an ideology in the jihadist ideology, in conquering the Middle East and moving on into Europe and the rest of the world,” he said.
“They call you Satans. They want to plant bombs in your cities all over the world. Hezbollah has terror cells situated in countries all over the world so and you ask yourself, why? How come Iran armed a tribe in Yemen called the Houthis on the shore of the Red Sea, and they’re affecting the cost of living of each and every British family or European family or American family [by attacking commercial shipping in the Red Sea]?
“This cannot go on. We expect that all our allies will be side-by-side with us in combating this terrible situation and fighting like we are to bring back our hostages home. There are 101 Israeli hostages, already 352 days they are in the dungeons of Gaza,” Herzog said.
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Iran’s Supreme Leader Says Trump Is Lying When He Speaks of Peace
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting with government officials in Tehran, Iran, April 15, 2025. Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused Donald Trump on Saturday of lying when the US president said during his Gulf tour this week that he wanted peace in the region.
On the contrary, said Khamenei, the United States uses its power to give “10-ton bombs to the Zionist (Israeli) regime to drop on the heads of Gaza’s children.”
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One after departing the United Arab Emirates on Friday that Iran had to move quickly on a US proposal for its nuclear program or “something bad’s going to happen.”
His remarks, said Khamenei, “aren’t even worth responding to.” They are an “embarrassment to the speaker and the American people,” Khamenei added.
“Undoubtedly, the source of corruption, war, and conflict in this region is the Zionist regime — a dangerous, deadly cancerous tumor that must be uprooted; it will be uprooted,” he said at an event at a religious center in Tehran, according to state media.
Earlier on Saturday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Trump speaks about peace while simultaneously making threats.
“Which should we believe?” Pezeshkian said at a naval event in Tehran. “On the one hand, he speaks of peace and on the other, he threatens with the most advanced tools of mass killing.”
Tehran would continue Iran-US nuclear talks but is not afraid of threats. “We are not seeking war,” Pezeshkian said.
While Trump said on Friday that Iran had a US proposal about its nuclear program, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi in a post on X said Tehran had not received any such proposal. “There is no scenario in which Iran abandons its hard-earned right to (uranium) enrichment for peaceful purposes…” he said.
Araqchi warned on Saturday that Washington’s constant change of stance prolongs nuclear talks, state TV reported.
“It is absolutely unacceptable that America repeatedly defines a new framework for negotiations that prolongs the process,” the broadcast quoted Araqchi as saying.
Pezeshkian said Iran would not “back down from our legitimate rights”.
“Because we refuse to bow to bullying, they say we are source of instability in the region,” he said.
A fourth round of Iran-U.S. talks ended in Oman last Sunday. A new round has not been scheduled yet.
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Hamas Confirms New Gaza Ceasefire Talks with Israel in Qatar on Saturday
Doha, Qatar. Photo: StellarD via Wikimedia Commons.
A new round of Gaza ceasefire negotiations between Hamas and Israel is underway in Qatar’s Doha, Hamas official Taher al-Nono told Reuters on Saturday.
He said the two sides were discussing all issues without “pre-conditions.”
Nono said Hamas was “keen to exert all the effort needed” to help mediators make the negotiations a success, adding there was “no certain offer on the table.”
The negotiations come despite Israel preparing to expand operations in the Gaza Strip as they seek “operational control” in some areas of the war-torn enclave.
The return to negotiations also comes after US President Donald Trump ended a Middle East tour on Friday with no apparent progress towards a new ceasefire, although he acknowledged Gaza’s growing hunger crisis and the need for aid deliveries.
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Report: ICC’s Khan Goes on Administrative Leave Amid Sexual Misconduct Probe
International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan speaks during an interview with Reuters in The Hague, Netherlands, Feb. 12, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw
i24 News – Chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Karim Khan has stepped down temporarily as an investigation into his alleged sexual misconduct by United Nations investigators is nearing its final phase, Reuters reported on Friday citing sources from the international court.
Khan allegedly forced sexual intercourse upon a member of staff on multiple occasions, the Wall Street Journal reported last week, linking the allegations to Khan’s decision to issue arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-defense minister Yoav Gallant.
A statement is expected later today announcing that Khan is going on administrative leave, according to a source in the prosecutor’s office.
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