Israel will respond to the attack suffered by Iran on the night between Saturday and Sunday. This was decided by the Israeli war cabinet convened in the evening by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu without, however, specifying when and where the retaliation will take place.
The Israel Defense Forces have ”approved defense and attack plans”IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said during a press conference. But “at the moment – he clarified – the IDF has no intention of expanding military operations”.
Therefore the reaction should not occur hot. The words pronounced this afternoon by the Israeli war cabinet minister, Benny Gantz, also go in this sense: “Faced with the threat of Iran – he said – we will build a regional coalition and exact a price from Iran in the world and at the right time“.
A line which, according to what was reported by the New York Times, would be the result of US pressure. President Biden has in fact, according to the newspaper, convinced Netanyahu to postpone the counter-offensive that the Israeli hawks wanted immediate, to avoid a further escalation.
“Netanyahu is well aware that President Biden does not seek conflict with Iranthat the president does not want tensions to escalate further and that the president is doing everything, and has been doing so since October 7, to prevent this from becoming a broader regional war,” confirmed the spokesperson for the National Security Council of the White House John Kirby in an interview with Fox News. When asked directly whether the Biden administration is advising the Israeli leaders to avoid retaliation, Kirby however remained vague: “I think it will be up to the Israelis to decide what the retaliation will be. next step”.
Meanwhile, the US continues its diplomatic and intelligence work to cool the climate. CIA chief William Burns telephoned Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin to ask for Ankara’s mediation between Israel and Iran, as reported by the Anadolu news agency citing security sources.
And the entire international community took action to slow the escalation. In the G7 convened today by Giorgia Meloni on the Middle Eastern crisis, the leaders in the final declaration of the summit underlined the need to avoid further escalation, inviting the parties to refrain from actions aimed at heightening tension in the Region.
And from the UN, Secretary General Antonio Guterres at the opening of the extraordinary meeting of the Security Council condemned “strongly the escalation represented by the large-scale attack launched by Iran” calling for “the immediate cessation of hostilities” because ‘The Middle East is on the brink of the abyss.’
But in addition to the Israeli reaction, there remains the unknown Iran which is currently sending conflicting signals. If immediately after the attack he made it known that the matter could be considered over, he did not give up making further threats. “Jerusalem will belong to the Muslims and the Muslims will celebrate the liberation of Palestine”, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, wrote in the evening on ‘X’, sharing a video in which drones are seen flying over the al-Aqsa Mosque.
Tags: react stops Netanyhau Tehran threatens
