IDF chief of staff says Israel will respond to Iran missile attack | Israel

Israel’s top general says the country will respond to Iran’s missile and drone attacks, but it’s unclear what form that response will take or whether it will be so intense that it could escalate the worsening violence It evolved into a full-scale regional war.

U.S. officials said on Monday that some form of counterattack against Iran’s attacks using more than 300 missiles and drones was almost inevitable, but the Biden administration remained hopeful that it would be a limited counterattack and not target Iranian territory.

IDF chief of staff Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi gave the clearest confirmation yet since the attack that Israel would strike back.

“The launch of so many missiles, cruise missiles and drones into Israeli territory will be met with a response,” Halevi said, speaking at Nevatim Air Base in southern Israel, which was slightly damaged in the attack.

On Monday afternoon, Israel’s war cabinet held its fourth meeting in the past two days, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and former defense minister and centrist Netanyahu rival Ben Gantz again discusses walking the tightrope between escalation and deterrence.

“We respect the decisions that the war cabinet, the prime minister, had to make. We know they live in a very tough community,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby told CNN on Monday. But he added that Joe Biden “has also made it very clear that we do not want a war with Iran. We are not seeking to expand and expand this conflict. We do not want to see an escalation.

According to Israel’s N12 news channel, the meeting, which lasted several hours, discussed a range of options that would show Iran’s actions had crossed a red line without triggering a larger response, as Tehran had threatened.

The N12 report stated that Israel intends to coordinate response measures with the United States, but the Biden administration has repeatedly stated that it will not participate in or assist any Israeli counterattacks. U.S. officials appeared to resign on Monday, saying the Israeli government would not heed Biden’s suggestion to “win” by shooting down the vast majority of incoming Iranian missiles and drones on Saturday night and Sunday morning, and that Israel would take certain measures Action reply.

The Israel Defense Forces claimed to have shot down 99% of the drones as well as ballistic and cruise missiles. But reports later emerged that many of Iran’s munitions failed to fire or fell far short of their targets. In the end, only four Iranian missiles hit the Nevatim base and its surrounding areas.

However, the Biden administration still hopes that the counterattack will not target any entities on Iranian soil, but will take the form of large-scale cyber attacks or target Iranian proxies or Iranian military targets, such as drone manufacturing factories in Lebanon, Syria or Iraq and other third countries.

Another possibility, officials said, is a covert attack on targets in Iran that Israel has not explicitly acknowledged but is known to have been carried out by Israeli special forces or intelligence services.

Over the past few decades, there have been a series of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists and bombings of sensitive military sites that have been attributed to Israel, but any attempt to target military sites or infrastructure in Iran has Any open attack will be viewed differently by Tehran, which will further escalate the threat and make a full-scale war more likely.

Some in the Israeli security establishment may see this weekend’s developments as a window of opportunity to go after Iran’s nuclear facilities, which have brought Iranian technicians closer to building weapons since the collapse of Donald Trump’s unilateral nuclear deal in 2015. grade uranium.

As with Saturday’s attack on Israel, the number of casualties or damage caused by direct Israeli retaliation may determine Iran’s next steps.

Biden and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken contacted Israel’s Arab neighbors on Sunday and Monday to reassure them of Washington’s position: urging Netanyahu not to react to Iranian attacks and that the U.S. would not engage in any Israeli Fight back.

On Sunday, French aircraft were involved in shooting down a shipment of munitions from Iran, and France joined foreign powers calling on Israel to exercise restraint. “For several years we have had an air base in Jordan to fight terrorism,” Emmanuel Macron told BFM television news channel. “Jordanian airspace was violated… We let planes take off and intercepted what we had to intercept. “

Macron echoed Biden’s stance and said France would help strengthen Israel’s defenses but would not support a counterattack on Iranian territory. “We will do everything we can to avoid a fire, an escalation,” the French president said. “We need to stand with Israel and ensure its maximum protection, but also call for restrictions to avoid escalation.”

He said the focus of the international community should be “isolating Iran, convincing countries in the region that Iran is a danger, increasing sanctions and increasing pressure on nuclear activities.”