JERUSALEM.- The army of Israel He insisted this Tuesday that will respond to the unpublished Iran’s attack on Israeli territory but the internal conflicts within the war cabinet of that country delay the decision on what the retaliation will be, while Global pressure is growing to avoid further escalation in the region.
“We cannot sit idly by in the face of such aggression, Iran will not emerge unscathed,” said army spokesman Daniel Hagari during a press visit to a base in southern Israel. “Firing 110 missiles directly at Israel will not go unpunished. We will respond when, where, and in the manner we determine.”he added.
Israel’s war cabinet met Tuesday for the third time in three days, an official said, to decide What will be the response to Iran’s first direct attack. Several options are on the table, from diplomacy to an imminent attack, according to an Israeli official who spoke in off the record.
However, decision making is affected by the internal ones within the powerful Israel war cabinet, where your three strong men –Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and former Israeli army chief Benny Gantz– there are disagreements over the most important decisions on all open fronts, from Gaza to Iran.
“The lack of trust between these three people is very clear and significant,” Giora Eiland, former Israeli general and national security adviser, told The Wall Street Journal.
According to the American newspaper, distrust does not stop growing between them, especially after Gantz – an opponent of Netanyahu, who was summoned to the war cabinet after the Hamas attack on October 7 – publicly called for early elections to remove Netanyahu from power. Today Gantz is the most popular politician in Israel and his most likely successor if there are elections, which arouses strong suspicions in the current far-right cabinet.
On the other hand, Netanyahu tried to fire Gallant last year after criticism from the official towards the prime minister was leaked. The link between Gantz and Gallant, in turn, is practically nil, but it is suspected that they could join forces to seek the end of Netanyahu’s government amid growing criticism in Israeli society towards the prime minister’s management, according to the American newspaper.
“It is very difficult for the prime minister to force the military to do what he wants if the defense minister is not aligned with him,” Amir Avivi, founder of the Israel Defense and Security Forum think tank, told the Wall Street Journal. “This lack of alignment is making things for Netanyahu very, very difficult,” he added.
The chief of the military General Staff, Herzi Halevi, had promised that the launch on Saturday night of more than 300 missiles, cruise missiles and drones from Iran towards Israeli territory “will receive a response”, but did not give details.
While the attack caused no deaths and little damage, thanks to air defenses and countermeasures by Israel and its allies, it has increased concern that violence rooted in the Gaza war is spreading and fears of open war between long-standing enemies.
Iran launched the attack in retaliation for an airstrike on its embassy compound in Damascus on April 1 blamed on Israel, but signaled it was not seeking further escalation.
Sanctions
Amid global concerns, the Foreign Affairs Council of the European Union will meet in Brussels on Tuesday to discuss ways to calm tensions. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, who met her Jordanian counterpart in Berlin, said she would fly to Israel later on Tuesday and discuss with officials there “how to avoid further escalation with more and more violence.”
President Joe Biden told Netanyahu over the weekend that The United States, Israel’s main protector, would not participate in an Israeli counterattack. Along with its European allies, Washington moved on Tuesday to tighten economic and political sanctions in an attempt to persuade Israel to refrain from violent retaliation.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz He said he was “leading a diplomatic attack” and wrote to 32 countries on Tuesday asking them to impose sanctions on Iran’s missile program. and follow Washington in outlawing its dominant military force, the Revolutionary Guard Corps, as a terrorist group. But he said such sanctions should come “along with the military response,” without specifying what that could mean.
The Secretary of the Treasury, Janet Yellen, He said the United States would use sanctions and work with allies to continue to disrupt Iran’s “malignant and destabilizing activity.”
The United States is using financial sanctions to isolate Iran and disrupt its ability to finance proxy groups and support Russia’s war in Ukraine, the Treasury Department said.
Since the start of President Joe’s administration in January 2021, the Treasury Department has targeted more than 500 individuals and entities linked to terrorism and terrorist financing by the Iranian regime and its proxies, according to Yellen.
Since Iran’s attack, Netanyahu has not commented publicly on discussions surrounding a response. But on Tuesday he described the war against Hamas, the Iran-backed group that Israel is waging in Gaza, as part of “a larger campaign” that includes fighting Hezbollah, the powerful Lebanese militia. “Iran supports Hamas, Hezbollah and others,” he told the military recruits. “But we are determined to win there and defend ourselves in all sectors.”
Pressure on Iran
There have also been calls for Iran to avoid any escalation. Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa spoke with her Iranian counterpart on Tuesday to urge Tehran to “exercise restraint,” according to a Japanese government statement.
In this context, Russian President Vladimir Putin called his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi, to warn him that an escalation in the Middle East would have “catastrophic consequences”, The Kremlin reported this Tuesday.
“Vladimir Putin expressed his hope that all parties will show reasonable restraint and avoid a new round of confrontation that would have catastrophic consequences for the entire region,” according to a statement released by the Kremlin. Raisi responded to Putin that Tehran was not “seeking to further escalate tensions,” reported Tass.
Russia and Iran are political and military allies and the Kremlin indicated that the call was made at Tehran’s request.
For its part, in a call between the Chinese and Iranian foreign ministers, China said it believed Iran could “manage the situation well and avoid further turmoil in the region” while safeguarding its sovereignty and dignity, according to state media. Chinese.
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani had told state television on Monday night that Tehran’s response to any Israeli counterattack would occur in “a matter of seconds, as Iran will not wait another 12 days to respond.”
The prospect of Israeli retaliation has also alarmed many Iranians already suffering economic hardship and tighter social and political controls since the 2022-23 protests.
Since the war in Gaza began in October, clashes have broken out between Israel and Iran-aligned groups based in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq.
Agencies Reuters and AFP