US said to believe Iran attack on Israel imminent

US said to believe Iran attack on Israel imminent

TOI STAFF

US President Joe Biden will convene his national security team in the situation room on Monday to discuss developments in the Middle East, the White House said, with the US said to believe an Iranian attack on Israel is imminent.

Biden will also speak with Jordan’s King Abdullah, the White House added.

The call comes a day after Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi made a rare visit to Iran amid continued diplomatic contacts by the United States and its partners, including France, Britain, Italy, and Egypt, to prevent further regional escalation.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told counterparts from G7 countries on Sunday that Washington believes an Iranian attack on Israel could begin within the next 24 to 48 hours, Axios reported, citing sources briefed on the call.

Blinken said that the US doesn’t know the exact timing of the planned Iranian attack, Axios said, but believes it could start as early as Monday.

In a statement, the G7 urged restraint and de-escalation in the Middle East, saying that recent events have “threatened to ignite a broader conflict in the region.”

The G7 urged “all involved parties once again to refrain from perpetuating the current destructive cycle of retaliatory violence, to lower tensions and engage constructively toward de-escalation,” in a statement.

The assessment that Iran is likely to attack Israel in the coming days or weeks follows last week’s back-to-back assassinations of Hezbollah military chief Fuad Shukr in Beirut by an Israeli strike and Hamas terror group leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. Iran has blamed Israel for Haniyeh’s death and has vowed to retaliate.

According to the report, Blinken spoke with his counterparts amid efforts by the US to de-escalate tensions in the region and prevent the eruption of an all-out war.

As the US believes an Iranian attack is inevitable, Blinken told the officials on the call that pressuring Tehran to limit its assault is the best way to avoid regional war.

Israel and the US were said on Sunday to be unsure what an attack by Iran could look like, believing Tehran has yet to come to a final decision and is unlikely to have finished coordinating with its proxies.

During the meeting with Netanyahu, the option of striking Iran as a deterrent measure was discussed, the Ynet news site reported, although security officials stressed that such a move would only be authorized if Israel received definite intelligence confirming that Tehran was about to launch an attack of its own.

Jerusalem would require its own intelligence on the issue to match up with US intelligence on the matter, the report said, and even if it did match, it may still choose to avoid going down the route of a preemptive strike.

At the same time as Israel and the US prepare for whatever attack Iran ultimately chooses to launch, Washington and its allies, both in the West and in the Middle East, have continued to push both Israel and Iran to de-escalate the situation, and to avoid the possibility of triggering an all-out regional war.