Israel weighs response to unprecedented attack by Iran

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Israel’s war cabinet met on Sunday afternoon to discuss possible responses to a massive overnight Iranian drone and missile attack, with US President Joe Biden urging restraint as the Middle East edged closer to full-blown regional war.

Iran launched the attack, the first such strike from its own territory against the Jewish state, as retaliation for a suspected Israeli strike in Damascus earlier this month that killed several Iranian commanders.

An Israeli person familiar with government deliberations said that the decision facing the five-person war cabinet, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was whether to “go big” against Iran or to respond in a more measured way.

Discussions were ongoing with all of the country’s key partners, especially the US administration, but the decision would ultimately be Israel’s, the person added.

Biden had counselled Israel to take a measured approach. “The President has been clear. We don’t want to see this escalate,” said John Kirby, spokesperson for the US National Security Council, on NBC’s Meet the Press. “We’re not looking for a wider war with Iran.”

Israeli officials said Iran had fired more than 300 projectiles, including 170 drones, 30 cruise missiles and 120 ballistic missiles at Israel beginning late on Saturday night and continuing over the course of several hours. Iran-backed militants in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen also fired rockets, drones and missiles at Israel.

Daniel Hagari, a spokesman for Israel’s military, said 99 per cent of the barrage had been intercepted. A girl was critically injured by shrapnel in the south of the country and an air force base suffered minor damage, but there were no other reports of serious impacts, he said.

Hardliners demanded decisive action. “We need a crushing attack,” Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s ultranationalist national security minister wrote on X, while Bezalel Smotrich, finance minister, said that if Israel “hesitates” then “we will put ourselves and our children in existential danger.”

General Mohammad Bagheri, chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces, said by targeting the Iranian consulate in Damascus in an attack on April 1, Israel had “crossed a red line that was unbearable”.

“The mission is accomplished and the operation is over and we have no intentions of going further,” Bagheri said, but if Israel opted to “commit any act against us, be it on our territory or our compounds in Syria and elsewhere, the next operation will be larger”.

Charles Michel, president of the EU Council, said a crisis meeting of G7 leaders had “unanimously condemned Iran’s unprecedented attack against Israel.”

“All parties must exercise restraint. We will continue all our efforts to work towards de-escalation,” he added after the videoconference meeting of the leaders on Sunday afternoon.

“Ending the crisis in Gaza as soon as possible, notably through an immediate ceasefire, will make a difference,” Michel said in a statement, adding that EU leaders would discuss “the situation in the Middle East” at a summit in Brussels this week.

G7 leaders discussed the possibility of imposing additional sanctions against Iran in response to the attack, but there was no consensus on how they should be applied, according to a person briefed on the discussion.

Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission president, who also participated in the G7 call, said that sanctions against Iran, targeting its drone and missile programmes, were being discussed.

The leaders agreed that the attacks represented a “major victory for Israel” given that almost all of the projectiles were shot down, and the country had received support and solidarity from all its western allies and some Middle Eastern powers.

Following a request from Israel, the UN Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting for Sunday to discuss the attack.