Israel wants to “protect” itself against Iran after an unprecedented attack

Israel "reserves the right to protect itself" face &agrav; Iran, supports its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose government has, according to media reports, considered a time of rapid retaliatory strikes against Tehran after the weekend attack.

Israeli authorities repeat that the Iranian attack, with more than 350 drones and missiles launched towards Israel, almost all of which were intercepted in flight, will not go “unpunished”.

According to Israeli and American media, the Netanyahu government did consider carrying out rapid retaliatory strikes in Iran but ultimately revised its plans.

According to Israeli public broadcaster Kan, Netanyahu decided not to carry out pre-approved plans for retaliatory strikes in the event of an attack, after discussions with US President Joe Biden, who is trying to avoid a direct Iran-Israel confrontation risking dragging the Middle East into a spiral of conflicts.

“Diplomatic sensitivities played a role (…) There will be good an answer but it will be different from what was initially planned,” a senior official told the channel on condition of anonymity.

Sources told the site American Axios that the war cabinet had juggled, during a meeting on Monday, the second after the Iranian attack, with the idea of ​​giving the green light to strikes, without however ordering them. According to the American channel ABC, the Israeli government twice considered strikes against Iran without taking action.

Tehran said its unprecedented air offensive on Israel was carried out in response to a deadly strike on its consulate in Damascus, blamed on Israel, on April 1.

– Withholding, sanctions and billions –

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock gives a press conference at Ben Gurion Airport on April 17, 2024 © AFP – GIL COHEN-MAGEN

Visiting Israel, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on Wednesday called on all parties to exercise “restraint”.

“I'm not talking about giving in, I'm talking about intelligent restraint here,” declared the first foreign official to travel to Israel, with her British counterpart David Cameron, since the weekend's Iranian attack.< /p>

But Israel “reserves the right to protect itself”, affirmed Benjamin Netanyahu during his meetings with these two European ministers.

Iran's allies in the Middle East © AFP – Olivia BUGAULT, Hervé BOUILLY, Jean-Michel CORNU

The United States, Israel's unwavering ally, said it did not want “an extended war with Iran” and maintained that it would not participate in an Israeli response. Washington, however, announced new sanctions against Tehran on Tuesday.

Ditto for the European Union which decided on Wednesday to target Iran with sanctions against drone and missile producers in order to “send a clear message after the attack on Israel”, declared the President of the Council, Charles Michel.

The US House of Representatives is due to hold a series of separate votes on Saturday to release 61 billion dollars for Ukraine and more than 26 billion for Israel.

Photo taken from Israel's southern border of Israeli armored vehicles returning from Palestinian territory on April 17, 2024 © AFP – JACK GUEZ

“Both Ukraine and Israel are under attack by impudent enemies who seek their annihilation,” Joe Biden wrote in the columns of the Wall Street Journal. “If both countries are fully capable of defending their own sovereignty, they depend on American aid to do so, including in arms. And we are at a pivotal moment,” he added.

– “Mom, mom, mom” –

Israel continues its operation in the Palestinian Gaza Strip launched in the wake of the attack carried out on October 7 by Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza, which resulted in the death of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to a report from the AFP established from official Israeli data.

More than 250 people have been kidnapped and 129 remain held in Gaza, 34 of whom have died according to Israeli officials.

Brigadier General Doron Gavish, former commander of the air defense force, speaks during a press briefing near the “Iron Dome” in southern Israel, near the border with the Gaza Strip, April 17, 2024 © AFP – JACK GUEZ

During the night from Wednesday to Thursday, witnesses reported deadly Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip where the military offensive left 33,899 dead in more than six months, most of them civilians, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health.

“I woke up to the sound of girls shouting 'mommy, mommy, mommy' and children calling to each other. I ran and found children running out (…) he “There were corpses scattered everywhere inside the store and outside,” Palestinian Jamalat Ramidan told AFP after a strike in Rafah (south) where more than a million people displaced by violence.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi takes part in a military parade in Tehran on April 17, 2024 © AFP – ATTA KENARE

As truce talks stall, Qatar said on Wednesday it was “conducting a global reassessment” of its role as a leading mediator in the negotiations.

The UN , which fears widespread famine in the territory of 2.4 million inhabitants, launched an appeal on Wednesday for donations of 2.8 billion dollars to help the Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

Benjamin Netanyahu rejected “the allegations of international organizations about a famine in Gaza” and affirmed that Israel was doing “everything possible on the humanitarian issue”.

The Israeli army immediately announced the entry into Gaza of eight trucks carrying flour from the World Food Program via the Israeli port of Ashdod, a new route to increase aid to Gaza.

– UN Vote –

Aside from Hamas and Iran, Israel also faces fire of Lebanese Hezbollah, an ally of Tehran and the Palestinian Islamist movement.

Hezbollah announced Wednesday that it had struck a military base in northern Israel, in response to strikes that killed three of his fighters. Fourteen Israeli soldiers were injured, six of them seriously, according to the Israeli army.

In this context, a vote by the UN Security Council at the initiative of Algeria, on the Palestinians' request to become a separate member state meeting of the United Nations, should take place Thursday or Friday, indicated several diplomats

The initiative appears doomed to failure, due to opposition from the United States States which have a veto in the Council.

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