The US President Joe Biden said on Saturday he hopes Israel’s latest strikes on Iran will mark the end of a months-long cycle of escalation, as his administration doubles down on efforts to reach a ceasefire deal for Gaza and Lebanon. “I hope this is the end,” he told reporters.
Waves of fighter jets and drones bombed military sites across Iran in an hours-long barrage on Saturday, the first time Israel has openly attacked its erstwhile enemy after decades of shadow warfare.
However, the strikes were restrained enough for Iranian officials to belittle the scale and effectiveness of the incursion and for Israeli hardliners to denounce their government for timidity. Israel’s military could have “exacted a higher price”, opposition leader Yair Lapid said in a post on X after the bombing ended.
For weeks the US had warned Israel publicly against hitting oil infrastructure or sites linked to Iran’s nuclear programme over fears of sparking a broader regional conflagration.
The attack focused on air defence, radar sites, and long-range missile production facilities. Four soldiers were killed, Iranian media said. In a show of military confidence, an Israeli spokesman had announced the attack as it got under way.
Biden said Israel gave him a heads up and it appeared “they didn’t hit anything but military targets” in their attacks. His administration is pushing to revive stalled Gaza ceasefire negotiations, which have been overshadowed by months of escalating aggression between Iran and Israel.
In a carefully worded statement on Saturday night, Iran’s military suggested it would prioritise an agreement to end fighting in Gaza and Lebanon over any retaliation against Israel, suggesting at least parts of Iran’s government want to avoid further escalation.
Iran’s foreign ministry said it had a right to self-defence after on Saturday’s attack. The statement said Iranian radar sites were damaged but some were already under repair, and added that Israel used so-called “stand off” missiles over Iraqi airspace to launch it attacks. They had lighter warheads to travel to targets inside Iran.
However, Israel’s military warned Iran against responding soon after it finished the attack. “If the regime were to make the mistake of beginning a new round of escalation, we will be obligated to respond,” said spokesperson R Adm Daniel Hagari.
There were global calls for restraint, including one from the United Nations head António Guterres, who said he was “deeply alarmed” and called on all sides to step back from further military action. The European Union, Russia, Arab Gulf nations and G7 finance ministers and central Bank governors also warned against further escalation. But months of such demands have had little impact on the ground. Hawks in both Israel and Iran are pushing for a more aggressive approach and the risks of costly miscalculations are immeasurably higher than even a few months ago.
Some Israeli political and security figures describe this moment as a once in a generation chance to strike Iran when its allies are in disarray and its defences have been pounded by waves of airstrikes. National security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said Saturday’s attack was “an opening blow” and strikes on the country’s strategic assets “must be the next step”, Haaretz reported. “We have a historic duty to remove the Iranian threat to destroy Israel,” he said in a statement.
Such comments fuel fears in Tehran that Israel could follow a playbook like the one it used against Hezbollah in Lebanon, where escalating airstrikes eventually paved the way for a ground operation.
“The biggest risk now is that having seen its regional deterrence decimated and its conventional deterrence proven inadequate, Iran might choose to go for the ultimate deterrent: crossing the Rubicon towards weaponisation of its nuclear programme,” Ali Vaez, Iran project director at Crisis Group, said.
Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been more cautious in the face of persistent warnings from Washington about the risk of escalation. Israel has relied on US missile systems to help stave off Iranian attacks and uses US weapons to fight is wars in Gaza and Lebanon.
The direct exchange of fire began early in April when Israel hit an Iranian diplomatic compound in the Syrian capital Damascus. Iran responded with its first direct drone and missile attacks on Israel, which in turn launched a “limited” strike.
In July Israel killed Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, and in September assassinated Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah in Beirut. In October Iran fired 200 ballistic missiles at Israel, saying it was in response for those killings.
Both sides want to avoid full-blown war, allies and analysts say, and have calibrated each round of attacks accordingly. But collectively the exchanges of fire have edged the region into an unprecedented high-stakes confrontation.
“They are in an entirely new territory now, where the old red lines have become pink and the new red lines are nebulous,” said Vaez. “If the war in Gaza and Lebanon continue, Iran and Israel will inevitably find themselves on a collision course again, veering much closer to the brink of all-out war.”
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Looming over the confrontation between Iran and Israel is the question of who will lead the US from next year, with the presidential election little more than a week away. Donald Trump, a long-term Iran hawk, said on Saturday that if Israel’s government had “listened to Biden”, it would be “waiting for a bomb to drop on their head right now”, in comments to the podcaster Joe Rogan.
But even if Harris loses, Biden will have two months in power and without an election looming, potentially greater freedom to press Israel to end its multi-front wars.
After months of repeatedly dashed hopes, his diplomats have once again taken up efforts to broker a ceasefire and hostage release deal for Gaza, where Israeli troops are pursing an intense ground operation in the north of the enclave. On SaturdayYesterday troops withdrew from the Kamal Adwan hospital in Jabalia, which they had stormed the previous day, but kept many of its medical staff in detention. They had seized 44 of the 70-strong team; only 14 have since been released.
The UN’s acting humanitarian chief Joyce Msuya called for an urgent halt to the military operation, attacks on health facilities and mass detentions there. “The entire population of northern Gaza is at risk of dying,” she said.
Many Palestinians fear that Israeli attacks and a tightening of the siege on the area aim to force the 400,000 people still living in Gaza City and surrounding towns to flee.
The “surrender or starve” tactics are outlined in a proposal known as “the generals’ plan”, presented to Benjamin Netanyahu’s government last month. Experts say such tactics amount to war crimes.
The ground offensive that began on 6 October has killed at least 800 people, and earlier this month the Biden administration’s concerns over shortages of food and medical supplies prompted a warning that Israeli access to US weapons funding would be at risk unless more aid reached Gaza.
The Israel Defense Forces and the Israeli government deny trying to pressure civilians to leave and say the new offensive is necessary to stop Hamas fighters regrouping. Israeli strikes in Lebanon killed another 19 people and wounded 108 people over the previous 24 hours, the country’s health ministry said yesterday.
Almost all male staff at the hospital had been taken away by Israeli forces, the head of the World Health Organsation, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, describing the situation in the area as “catastrophic”.
“Following the detention of 44 male staff members, only female staff, the hospital director, and one male doctor are left to care for nearly 200 patients in desperate need of medical attention,” he said.
“A critical shortage of medical supplies, compounded by severely limited access, are depriving people of life saving care,” he said.
“Reports of the hospital facilities and medical supplies being damaged or destroyed during the siege are deplorable.”