Yorán “made a big mistake, and he will pay for it.”
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The Prime Minister of Israel reacted with those words last night, Benjamin Netanyahuduring a meeting with his cabinet to evaluate how they will respond to the attacks with 181 ballistic missiles that Tehran launched this Tuesday against the Jewish State.
During the barrage of rockets, millions of Israelis ran to take refuge in bunkers after the alert sent by the Army while anti-aircraft alarm sirens echoed throughout the territory and dozens of explosions were heard over Jerusalem. In Tel Avivemergency services reported two minor injuries, while, in the occupied West Bank, a Palestinian was killed in Jericho by fragments of a downed missile, according to the city’s governor.
The explosive devices, which were mostly intercepted by Israeli anti-aircraft batteries (see alternate note) and did not cause major damage, were visible in the sky due to the luminous trails they left in the air, according to the international correspondents present.
The Guardians of the RevolutionIran’s ideological army, claimed that the attack was a response to the death of the head of Hezbollah, Hasan Nasrallah, last week, and that of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on July 31. In addition, the barrage of missiles also occurs just hours after Israel announced “selective raids” in southern Lebanon to combat the Lebanese movement.
As it is, this is the second direct attack that Tehran has launched in the last six months against its greatest enemy in the region. The first occurred on April 13, when the Iranians fired nearly 350 explosive drones and missiles in response to a deadly bombing that they blamed on Israel against the Iranian consulate in Damascus, the Syrian capital. Like this Tuesday, the attacks at that time had no major repercussions. However, the fact that it had been directed against Israeli cities could constitute a change in the equation of tensions that exist in that region.
“This attack will have consequences. We have plans and we will act in the place and at the time we decide,” reacted the spokesman for the Israeli army, Daniel Hagari. For their part, the Revolutionary Guards threatened to carry out “devastating attacks” if Israel responded to Tuesday’s attack. According to analysts, the how and when of the Israeli response could be decisive in understanding what the course of the conflict will be, which seems increasingly closer to a direct confrontation.
Uranium facilities
“Israel will now be tempted to retaliate against Iran with much greater force than it employed in April. At the time, following Iran’s April attack, there was a concerted international diplomatic effort to prevent Israel from reacting too strongly. In the end, Israel carried out a minor but symbolic missile attack against a target near Iran’s nuclear facilities. It caused little damage, but it showed Iran that it had the range to attack them,” wrote Frank Gardner, correspondent and security affairs expert for the British network. BBC.
A newspaper editorial agrees with that vision. The New York Times mentioning that the Israelis could be considering attacking the uranium enrichment complexes in Iran. “According to US officials, the most extreme scenarios being explored this time involve Israel attacking nuclear facilities, particularly the Natanz enrichment plants, the heart of the Iranian program. It is in Natanz, north of Isfahan, that Iran has produced its near-bomb-grade uranium, which U.S. officials say could become bomb-grade in a matter of days or weeks.”
Against this backdrop, US President Joe Biden came out in support of his ally Israel. Even, Washington mobilized its military power to help intercept the missiles, as did Jordan. In fact, the American destroyers USS Bulkely and USS Cole, stationed in the area, launched a dozen interceptors from the eastern Mediterranean.
In statements to the press at the White House, Biden indicated that he plans to speak with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, although he did not clarify when, and explained that his team has been in “constant” contact with their Israeli counterparts.
“I have not spoken to him (Netanyahu). “We have spoken to all his people and I am going to speak to him,” said Biden, who spent much of the day in the White House Crisis Room monitoring the situation.
A journalist asked him what the consequences should be for Iran for the nearly 200 missiles it has launched against Israel, to which the president simply said: “That (the consequences) remains to be seen.”
At the moment, international efforts do not appear to be dissuading the parties involved in the conflict from reducing tension. Both the United States, the UN and the European powers have advocated a negotiated solution to the crisis.
However, as Julian Borger, international editor of the British newspaper The Guardian, says, “the containment forces in the Middle East are weakening.”
“Netanyahu, for his part, has more freedom of action. With Iranian missiles over Tel Aviv, it is much more difficult for Washington to try to influence his actions, and the prime minister’s opponents are much more difficult to call for his ouster. Today, Netanyahu is also much closer to his long-standing ambition: to involve the United States in a war against Iran that will destroy its nuclear program,” adds Borger.
The Iranian attack occurred hours after the Israeli Army announced “limited incursions” on Lebanon’s southern border on Monday night, ordering the population to move away from the area.
The extent of the Israeli offensive in Lebanon was not immediately clear, but the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon said it did not amount to a “ground incursion”, while Hezbollah denied that Israeli soldiers had entered Lebanese territory.
However, it is worth remembering that, for more than a week, Israel has been carrying out heavy bombing attacks against different targets in southern and central Lebanon. In fact, the Crisis Center stated that more than 240,000 people, both Syrians and Lebanese, fled to Syria since September 23, when the bombings began.
In parallel to this entire crisis, the Houthis – also close to Iran – also claimed to have carried out three attacks this Tuesday against two ships in the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean, including a British oil tanker, in a significant escalation of its operations against Yemen’s vital sea routes. In a televised statement, the group’s military spokesman, Yahya Sarea, said its naval forces, missile unit and air force carried out coordinated attacks against two ships.
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