European diplomats traveled to Israel on Wednesday to make one more plea for restraint in response to the aerial attack that Iran launched this weekend, but Britain’s foreign secretary acknowledged that an Israeli reprisal seemed inevitable.
“It is clear that the Israelis are making a decision to act,” the British foreign secretary, David Cameron, told the BBC, just before he met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “We hope that they do so in a way that does as little to escalate this as possible.”
Israel’s allies, including the United States, Britain and Germany, have joined other world leaders in repeatedly pressing Mr. Netanyahu to avoid taking any action that could increase tensions with Iran, which launched more than 300 missiles and drones at Israel on Saturday night, Tehran’s first direct attack on Israel.
But Mr. Netanyahu, after meeting with Mr. Cameron and Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said that Israel would “do everything necessary to defend itself.”
He thanked Israel’s allies for their “support in words and support in actions” in remarks before a cabinet meeting, according to his office. But, he added: “They also have all kinds of suggestions and advice. I appreciate it. But I want to make it clear — we will make our own decisions.”
Vedant Patel, a State Department spokesman, said at a news conference in Washington on Wednesday that the United States was pushing for a “unified diplomatic response” to the Iranian attack and was urging Israel to avoid “further escalation.” But he added, “These decisions are for Israel to make as a sovereign, democratic country.”
Israel’s war cabinet has met several times since the weekend to discuss when and how to respond to Iran’s barrage of ballistic missiles and exploding drones, almost all which were intercepted by Israel’s air defenses, supported by the United States, Britain, France and Jordan.
Israeli officials are said to be considering a range of options, from a direct strike on Iran to a strike on an Iranian target, such as an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps base, in a country other than Iran, to a cyberattack or assassinations, trying to send a clear message to Tehran while not sparking a major escalation.
“Israel will respond when it sees fit,” an Israeli official said on Wednesday, adding that it had “multiple ways” to do so. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military strategy.
Iranian leaders have warned that the country will react forcefully to any Israeli strike. “We will respond with more deadly weapons,” the Iranian army’s commander in chief, Maj. Gen. Abdolrahim Mousavi, said on Wednesday
Iran said it had attacked Israel in response to an April 1 airstrike on a diplomatic compound in Syria, which killed at least three senior Iranian commanders and four officers overseeing Iran’s covert operations in the Middle East.
Ms. Baerbock said it was critical to prevent “the highly dangerous situation in the Middle East from turning into a regional conflagration,” the German news outlet Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported.
“As the G7, we speak with one voice,” Ms. Baerbock said after arriving in Italy on Wednesday for a meeting of foreign ministers of the Group of 7 nations. “All players in the region are called upon to exercise maximum restraint.”
Mr. Cameron said that the Group of 7, which includes the United States as well as Britain and Germany, should work together to punish Iran with sanctions. U.S. and European officials said on Tuesday that they were considering placing additional sanctions on Iran that could target its oil revenue and weapons programs.
Although Iran’s attack has shifted international focus away from the war in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military has continued to bomb some parts of the territory, and many Gazans remain desperate for food.
This week, throngs of Palestinians lined up to buy bread at two bakeries that had reopened in Gaza City. The Israeli military said the opening of the bakeries was a sign of improving conditions for civilians in northern Gaza, where residents are facing the severest hunger crisis.
But some Gazans said the bakeries were not making enough bread to meet the overwhelming demand.
“People line up there for around three hours to get one and only one bag of bread,” said Mazen Harazeen, 39, a paramedic in Gaza City with nine children, who walked nearly two miles to reach one of the bakeries. Their impact, he said, would be “very small.”
Fuel for the bakeries was delivered by the United Nations last Sunday and was scheduled to run out by Friday, said Abeer Etefa, a spokeswoman for the U.N. World Food Program. It was not clear when more fuel would arrive, she said.
The World Food Program added in a social media post: “We need safe and sustained access to prevent famine.”
As Israel battles Hamas, it was struck again on Wednesday by another Iranian-backed group, the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, which claimed responsibility for a drone and missile attack on northern Israel.
The Israeli military said 14 soldiers were wounded, six of them severely, making it one of the most damaging strikes in recent months by Hezbollah, which has been trading fire with Israel over the Lebanon-Israel border.
Hezbollah said the attack was a response to Israeli airstrikes a day earlier that the Israeli military said had killed two Hezbollah commanders.
The fighting has displaced tens of thousands of civilians on both sides of the border, and in recent months Israeli strikes inside Lebanon have begun to creep deeper into the country’s interior.
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