Israeli soldiers run for a cover as siren warning for rockets and missiles heard during a media tour to the village on Oct. 15, 2024, in Metula, Israel. (Amir Levy, Getty Images via TNS)
(Tribune News Service) — Israel said it’s weighing U.S. misgivings over a planned counter-strike on Iran, after a report suggesting the government is keeping nuclear and energy facilities off the target list to cap a potential escalation.
Yet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also asserted the country is free to act how it chooses after more than a year of battling Iranian proxy groups and fending off two direct long-range attacks from the Islamic Republic, whose regional clout and nuclear aspirations Netanyahu sees as an existential threat.
“We listen to the opinions of the United States, but we will make our final decisions based on our national interests,” Netanyahu’s office said Tuesday.
A report in the Washington Post said the Israeli premier had agreed to limit his retaliation for an Oct. 1 Iranian ballistic missile salvo to military targets. The newspaper cited two officials familiar with the matter who it didn’t identify.
Such a decision might not sit well with more hard-line Israelis. “We have an opportunity to cut off the head of the snake,” far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir told Army Radio, in reference to Iran. He declined to give details on closed-door cabinet deliberations.
Israel’s prospective counter-strike is jangling nerves across the Middle East and has further strained ties with U.S. President Joe Biden, who has sought unsuccessfully to secure a truce in the country’s conflicts with Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Both organizations are designated terrorist groups by the U.S.
Israel has started to see attacks within its borders. Israel Police said one officer was killed and four other people wounded by a gunman on a highway south of Tel Aviv. The incident was classed as terrorism, the police said, adding that the gunman had been shot dead. His identity was not immediately clear.
A major escalation may engulf the broader region in conflict and have implications for energy markets and the outcome of the U.S. presidential elections on Nov. 5. Oil plunged after the report that Israel may avoid targeting Iran’s crude infrastructure, turning traders’ focus to the International Energy Agency’s expectations of a sizable glut early next year.
Israel and the U.S. have been conferring regularly on Iran strategy. An Israeli official said the country expects on Tuesday to receive the first elements of a U.S.-supplied and operated missile shield known as THAAD. That system would help defend against ballistic missile attacks, although some Israeli analysts have said the deployment, along with about 100 U.S. troops, might also hinder Israel’s ability to act alone against Iran.
Lebanon Push
Israeli tanks and troops are continuing their incursion into southern Lebanon in an attempt to root out Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants, while the air force pummels the country’s interior.
On Monday, Lebanese authorities said a bombing killed 21 people in a remote region with a Christian-majority population, well away from the Hezbollah heartland.
Israel said it struck Hezbollah and that it was assessing reports of civilian casualties.
Hezbollah, which killed four soldiers at an Israeli rear base with a drone strike on Sunday, is keeping up its attacks. On Tuesday, sirens sounded in and around the northern Israeli port city of Haifa, sending hundreds of thousands of people running to shelters. The Israeli military said two projectiles launched from Lebanon were shot down.
While Israel has overrun Hamas in the Palestinian territory of Gaza, it has staged new ground and airstrikes in what it says is an attempt to stop the Islamist militants regrouping.
An attack near a hospital on Monday killed four people, the Palestinian health ministry said. Videos from the scene showed tents and at least one body in flames. Israel said the target was a Hamas command center.
Iran’s foreign minister has toured regional countries over the past week to urge “a common understanding” on the crisis, according to a statement. Abbas Araghchi visited counterparts in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iraq and Oman, as well as meeting with an official from the Yemen-based Houthis and holding a call with China’s Foreign Ministry.
Iran has repeatedly called on Gulf Arab states to cut ties with Israel over the war in Gaza, which has devastated the Palestinian territory after more than a year of fighting.
The head of the country’s Quds Force, the branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps responsible for foreign operations, made his first public appearance in weeks early Tuesday. It followed reports he was in Beirut during an Israeli air strike last month.
Esmail Qaani was attending a ceremony in Tehran to receive the body of an IRGC official who was killed alongside Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in the Lebanese capital in September.
With assistance from Nick Wadhams, Patrick Sykes, Dana Khraiche and Beril Akman.
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