EUROPE, U.S. URGE ISRAEL TO SHOW RESTRAINT
Allies call on leaders to step away from ‘the edge of the cliff’ of regional escalation in the wake of weekend drone and missile attack by Tehran
Israel’s European allies urged it yesterday to show restraint over Iran’s weekend missile and drone attack, calling on Israeli leaders to step away from “the edge of the cliff” of escalation in the Middle East.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war cabinet, which is empowered to decide on the country’s response, was set to convene later yesterday, a government source said.
Israeli officials said the war cabinet, which also met on Sunday, favoured retaliation but was divided over the timing and scale of any such response.
The Iranian attack on Saturday, less than two weeks after a suspected Israeli strike in Syria that killed two Iranian generals in an Iranian consular building, marked the first time Iran has launched a direct military assault on Israel, despite decades of enmity dating back to the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The Iranian attack, involving more than 300 missiles and drones, caused only modest damage in Israel. Most were shot down by Israel’s Iron Dome defence system and with help from the US, Britain, France and Jordan.
With the danger of open warfare erupting between Israel and Iran, and tension high over the war in Gaza, US President Joe Biden had told Netanyahu the United States would not participate in any Israeli counteroffensive against Iran, US officials said.
Britain, France, Germany and the European Union’s foreign policy chief all joined Washington and United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres in calling for restraint.
“The Middle East is on the brink. The people of the region are confronting a real danger of a devastating full-scale conflict,” Guterres said at a UN Security Council emergency meeting on Sunday.
“Now is the time to defuse and de-escalate.”
French President Emmanuel Macron urged Israel to set its sight on isolating Iran rather than escalating the situation. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz warned Iran not to carry out more attacks and said Israel must also contribute to de-escalation.
Speaking in Shanghai yesterday during a three-day visit to China, Scholz said Tehran “must stop this aggression”.
UK foreign minister David Cameron told Times Radio that he echoed Biden’s plea for Israel to “take the win and then move on to focus on how to eradicate Hamas in Gaza and how to get those hostages free”.
Josep Borrell, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, told Spanish radio station Onda Cero: “We’re on the edge of the cliff and we have to move away from it.”
Russia has refrained from criticising its ally Iran in public over the strikes but expressed concern about the risk of escalation yesterday and also called for restraint.
“Further escalation is in no one’s interests,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Two senior Israeli ministers have signalled retaliation is not imminent and that Israel will not act alone.
“We will build a regional coalition and exact the price from Iran in the fashion and timing that is right for us,” centrist minister Benny Gantz said.
Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel had an opportunity to form a strategic alliance “against this grave threat by Iran”.
Iranian army chief of staff Major General Mohammad Bagheri has warned Israel not to retaliate, and told Washington that US bases could be attacked if it helped Israel do so.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said Tehran had informed the United States that the attack on Israel would be limited and for selfdefence, and that regional neighbours had been informed of the planned strikes 72 hours in advance.
US officials said Tehran had not warned Washington.
Iran’s unprecedented attack on Israel late on Saturday marked a change in approach for Tehran, which had relied on proxies across the Middle East since the start of the Israel-Gaza war in October. All eyes are now on whether Israel chooses to take further military action. Its forces said almost all of the more than 300 drones and missiles launched by Iran were shot down by its anti-missile defence system or were intercepted by Israel’s allies before they reached their targets. At least nine countries were involved in the military escalation – with projectiles fired from Iran, Iraq, Syria and Yemen and downed by Israel, the United States, Britain and France as well as Jordan. Photographers from AFP, DPA, EPA, Reuters and AP were there to record the scenes.