Biden presses for diplomatic response to Iran’s attack on Israel
TEL AVIV—U.S. President Biden said he would convene leaders from the Group of Seven nations Sunday to coordinate a diplomatic response to Iran’s overnight attack on Israel, an effort to head off further military escalation between the two countries that could spark a wider regional conflagration. The attack expands the conflict ignited by militant group Hamas’s deadly Oct.
7 raid on Israel and marks a new, intense phase in a shadow war between the country and Iran, developments the U.S. has tried to avert. Israel’s leaders were considering whether to respond to the wave of more than 300 drones and cruise and ballistic missiles fired by Iran.
Israeli, American and other allied forces intercepted the majority of the projectiles before they reached Israeli territory, and no deaths have been reported, but the scale of the direct attack on Israeli soil raises the risk of further escalation. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said last week his country would attack Iran should Tehran launch an assault on Israeli territory. “That assertion remains valid," Katz told the Israel’s Army Radio on Sunday.
Iran appeared to want to overwhelm Israel’s defenses and destroy infrastructure at the major air base, Nevatim, where the Israeli military houses its fleet of F-35 fighter planes, said Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence and air force fighter pilot. The base suffered only minor damage, Israel’s military said. In recent years when Israel has faced rocket or missile barrages from Iranian proxies such as Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Israeli military has responded quickly and forcefully.
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