Calls grow for restraint amid threat of Iranian attack on Israeli targets
Russia and Germany urge calm, but Tehran expected to retaliate for embassy airstrike
There were mounting calls for restraint on Thursday amid growing fears that Iran is on the verge of retaliation for an Israeli airstrike this month on its embassy compound in Damascus.
The attack on April 1 killed an Iranian general and six other officers, further increasing tension in a region already on edge because of the Gaza war.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the strike was tantamount to an attack on
Iranian soil. Israel “must be punished and it shall be,” he said.
The “imperative for Iran to punish this rogue regime” might have been avoided if the UN Security Council had condemned the strike and brought the perpetrators to justice, Tehran’s mission to the UN said on Thursday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was continuing its war in Gaza but making security preparations elsewhere. “Whoever harms us, we will harm them. We are prepared to meet all of the security needs of the state of Israel, both defensively and offensively,” he said.
German Foreign Minister An
nalena Baerbock called her Iranian counterpart Hossein Amirabdollahian to urge “maximum restraint” to avoid further escalation of the crisis. The German airline Lufthansa, one of only two Western carriers that fly to Tehran, extended a suspension of its flights to the Iranian capital.
Iranian air space is also a key route for flights between the UAE and Qatar and Europe and North America.
The Foreign Ministry in Moscow told Russians they should not travel to the Middle East, especially to Israel, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.
“Right now it’s very important for everyone to maintain restraint so as not to lead to a complete destabilization of the situation in the region, which doesn’t exactly shine with stability and predictability,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
US and Israeli intelligence chiefs believe missile or drone strikes by
Iran or its proxies against Israeli military and government targets are imminent.
US President Joe Biden said Iran was threatening to launch a “significant attack in Israel,” and told Netanyahu: “Our commitment to Israel’s security against these threats from Iran and its proxies is iron clad.”
US Middle East envoy Brett McGurk called the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Iraq to ask them to deliver a message to Iran urging it to lower tensions.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry said those countries had spoken by phone with Amirabdollahian.