Over 1,100 people have been reported dead on both sides as an all-out war broke out on Saturday between Israel and Palestinian militants in response to a massive Hamas air, ground, and sea offensive. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared the next day that they were “embarking on a long and difficult war,” marking the bloodiest escalation of the Israel-Palestine conflict in decades.
Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada, an Iraqi militia that is part of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, or Hashd al-Shaabi in Arabic) and extensively linked to Iran, warned the US in a Sunday night statement against coming to Israel’s aid in the war.
“If America intervenes directly in the events taking place there to support the collapsing entity [Israel], all American presence in the region will turn into legitimate targets for the axis of resistance,” said a statement from the group’s so-called Jihadi Council.
“Then we will strike with blows, and on that day there will be no red lines left,” it warned.
A profile of Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada by the Washington Institute in 2021 described it as “a splinter of Kataib Hezbollah that works directly with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and has a transnational focus on the shared regional agenda of the Iran-backed axis of resistance.”
Its leader, Abu Mustafa al-Sheibani, was listed by the US as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in July 2008, and the group became integrated into the Iraqi security forces when they formed the 14th brigade of the PMF.
The group also enjoys “strong and supportive relations” with the Lebanese Hezbollah, who launched rocket strikes on Israeli positions in the north on Sunday, triggering retaliatory artillery strikes by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).
More than 700 Israelis have been killed since fighting broke out and another 2,100 have been wounded, the IDF said on Monday, while the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza placed the death toll at 465, including 91 children, as Israeli airstrikes pummeled the enclave of over 2 million people.
On Sunday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Iran helped Hamas to plot its surprise attack against Israel and gave it the “final go-ahead” in a meeting in Beirut last Monday.
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said that Washington “is sending additional equipment and resources, including munitions, to arrive in Israel in the coming days” in a phone call with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, after at least four US citizens were killed in the brazen Hamas attack.
Hamas labeled the delivery of American munitions and aid to Israel as an act of “aggression” against Palestinians.
