Joe Biden says he does not support an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, as the United States seeks to soften Israel’s response to Tuesday’s Iranian missile attack and contain a rapidly escalating regional conflict.
Biden’s comments came after Israel’s top diplomat at the United Nations warned that Iran’s retaliation for Iran’s salvo of nearly 200 ballistic missiles would be “heavier than Tehran imagined.” On the same day, Israel’s Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Helzi Halevi, warned that “we have the ability to attack any point in the Middle East that we reach,” a reality that Israel’s enemies “will not readily understand.” “I will.”
In Washington, it is almost certain that Israel will respond militarily, even more than the only previous Israeli airstrike against Iran in April, when missiles were fired at air defense facilities near Isfahan after an Iranian airstrike in April. The general view is that it is almost certain that an in-depth military response will be taken. this year.
But the Biden administration has warned that a large-scale Israeli response, particularly targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities, could prompt further escalation, ultimately drawing in the U.S. military and leading to Iran’s decision to build nuclear weapons. I’m concerned.
Almost all of the Iranian missiles that flew in on Tuesday were intercepted by Israel’s multi-layered air defense network, and the only fatality was a Palestinian killed by falling debris in the West Bank. However, an unspecified number of missiles landed on or near Israeli air bases in Nevatim and Ternov, causing damage to office buildings and other maintenance areas, although they did not damage aircraft or personnel.
The U.S. government first issued an alert Tuesday night, hours before the Iranian missile launch, and U.S. officials have since been in urgent talks with Israeli officials about their country’s response.
Second only to nuclear facilities in terms of devastating impact, Israel is considering widespread attacks on Iranian oil facilities, airstrikes on military bases, or targeted assassinations, which Israel has widely used in the region. It has been reported. Meanwhile, the United States is thought to be proposing its own economic measures against the country, which is already under heavy sanctions, as a complement to Israel’s military response.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened a meeting of senior security officials on Wednesday afternoon at Israel’s Defense Headquarters in Kirya in Tel Aviv to discuss the country’s options following a series of talks with Washington.
Eight Israelis have been killed in three clashes with Hezbollah after conducting a major ground invasion across the Lebanese border for the first time since 2006, as Israel considers opening a fourth front against regional enemies. It was confirmed that soldiers were killed and a significant number were injured.
The Israeli military said the invasion, which began on Tuesday, was aimed primarily at destroying tunnels and other Hezbollah infrastructure along the border. On Wednesday, more troops were deployed in the north, issuing an evacuation warning to Lebanese residents in more than 20 border towns and telling them to move across the Awari River, 60 kilometers (37 miles) inside Lebanon, and further ground operations were planned. suggested that it would be done.
Most of the Israeli casualties on Wednesday were from special forces involved in clashes with cross-border Shiite militias just above the Israeli community of Misgab, and another incident in Maroun el-Ras Two soldiers from the Golani Brigade were killed. A district in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah said its fighter jets detonated an explosive device in southern Lebanon, wounding and killing a group of Israeli soldiers, and that guided rockets attacked three Israeli Merkava tanks in the Lebanese border town of Maroun el-Ras. claimed to have destroyed it. The Guardian was unable to confirm the circumstances of either incident.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on Wednesday that Israeli airstrikes killed three people in Damascus and destroyed buildings in the Mazzeh district, an area favored by Hezbollah militants and Revolutionary Guards personnel.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) continues to fight Hamas in Gaza, nearly a year after the war began there. They have carried out regular raids targeting militants in the West Bank and have been at war with Hezbollah over the past two weeks, including targeted assassinations and devastating airstrikes across Lebanon, and on Tuesday culminated in a cross-border invasion by ground forces.
The stated purpose of the attack on Lebanon is to create conditions that will allow more than 60,000 Israeli residents displaced by Hezbollah attacks over the past year to return to their homeland. But the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an airstrike on Friday prompted an Iranian missile attack on Tuesday in retaliation for the death of Tehran’s closest partner in the region.
The UN Security Council convened on Wednesday to discuss the escalating conflict, with Secretary-General António Guterres warning that “time is running out” and that “the deadly cycle of retaliatory violence must be stopped. ‘ he warned.
In a letter to the Security Council, Iran said it “targeted only military and security facilities of the regime with defensive missile strikes, in full compliance with the principle of distinction under international humanitarian law,” and said it was acting in self-defense. justified the attack.
Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon denied the claims, calling the Iranian missile attack a “calculated attack on civilians.”
Danny Danon at the United Nations on Tuesday. Photo: Stephanie Keith/Getty Images
“Israel will respond,” Danon told reporters. “Our response will be decisive and certainly painful, but unlike Iran, we will act in full accordance with international law.”
He later added that Iranians were “going to do even worse than they imagined.”
U.S. Special Envoy Linda Thomas-Greenfield called on the Security Council to impose “grave consequences” on Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps over Tuesday’s attack.
“The Iranian regime will be held accountable for its actions,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “And we strongly warn against further action by Iran or its proxies against the United States or against Israel.”
The growing crisis comes at a difficult time for Joe Biden, less than five weeks before the election, when he hopes to hand over occupancy of the White House to Vice President Kamala Harris.
While expressing staunch support for Israel, he acknowledged that while Israel views Iran’s nuclear program as a potential existential threat, it cannot inflict significant military damage on its own. We are aware of this and are trying to prevent the United States from being drawn directly into a conflict with Iran.
“It is a widely held assumption that Prime Minister Netanyahu has favored bringing the United States into direct military conflict with Iran for many years in office, and now he appears closer than ever to achieving that goal.” said party president Daniel Levy. This was revealed by the US-Middle East Project Policy Research Institute.
Ali Baez, director of the International Crisis Group’s Iran project, said: “Israel’s impressive successes in both the military and intelligence fields over the past few weeks have attracted some in the Biden administration, which had previously advised caution. I think so,” he said. Consider the option of striking now and continuing to further weaken Iran and its regional allies, or even potentially targeting Iran’s nuclear program. ”
“Whether or not the United States is involved, such an attack is certain to be the final straw in Iran’s political determination to develop the ultimate deterrent,” Baez warned.
