Israel has not ruled out striking Iran’s nuclear facilities in retaliation for Iranian ballistic missile strikes earlier this week, a senior US State Department official said on Friday, CNN reported.
According to the official’s statement, Tel Aviv has not given assurances to the United States presidential administration that strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities in retaliation for Iranian ballistic missiles are not under consideration. “We hope and expect to see some wisdom as well as strength, but as you guys know, no guarantees,” the official said.
US officials voiced support for Israel responding to the Iranian missile attack earlier this week, and several officials said publicly that there should be consequences but expressed concern about instability in the Middle East. US officials have also so far lacked clarity on when Israel’s response would either be determined or accepted.
President Joe Biden said the US would not support Israeli action on Iran’s nuclear programme. “If I were in their shoes, I’d be thinking about other alternatives than striking oil fields,” Biden said at a press briefing on Friday.
Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said Wednesday that there are “major efforts on both sides to keep lines of communication open and to make sure that perspectives are understood. There have been moments of surprise, I don’t think that’s a secret, over the course the last couple of months.”
“With respect to the Iranian attack on Israel, it is not just Israel that is thinking about its response options; it is also the United States. Our dominant message is, ‘let’s take great care in whatever we do with respect to Iran,'”Campbell said at an event at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Iran’s missile attack stood out for its scale
Iran’s ballistic missile attack on Israel this week, only the second time Iran has directly targeted Israel, stands out for its scale and limited impact, analysts said, according to The Washington Post. On Tuesday, at least two dozen missiles penetrated Israeli defences, far more than in the previous attack in April, some of them hitting Israeli military and intelligence facilities or near them, but the damage still remains limited.
In its attack, Tehran used the fastest-launched and fastest-flying missiles and more launchers than experts were aware of. State media made a statement about Iran’s use of advanced ballistics that had not been used before. Iranian state media said it used the long-range Ghadr and Emad missiles and its more advanced hypersonic Fattah missiles for the first time, Mehr news agency reported. 90 per cent of the missiles reached their target, according to state media. Analysts, for their part, say this is an exaggeration, but the data shows that many more reached Israel than in April.
The Israeli military, in turn, reported that some 99 per cent of the rockets and drones were either intercepted or malfunctioned. Only a few appear to have landed in Israel, causing minimal damage. Still, analysts said the attack posed a real risk, while experts said air defence systems may have been depleted.
No fewer than two dozen missiles struck or flew near two military installations and one reconnaissance facility. A Middlebury Institute of International Studies team released a preliminary analysis on Thursday night saying that satellite images of Israel’s Nevatim airbase in the Negev Desert showed at least 32 hit points, suggesting that 16 per cent or more of the rockets fired hit the target.
Tensions between Iran and Israel have risen over devastating Israeli attacks on Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the ongoing war in Gaza. Iran said the strike on Tuesday was revenge for the assassinations of Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, in Beirut late last month, and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July.
