Biden pushes for attack on Iranian nuclear facilities as Israel considers retaliation

US President Joe Biden said on Wednesday Israel should not attack Iranian nuclear facilities in retaliation for a rocket attack the day before, saying any response must be proportionate.

Asked by reporters whether the Jewish state should tackle the controversial nuclear program after Iran’s largest-ever attack on its territory, Biden replied “no.”

An international consensus among world powers in the G7 group is that retaliation is justified but should be limited, he added.

“All seven of us agree that they have the right to respond, but they must respond proportionately.”

According to the Israeli military, Iran fired around 180 rockets at Israel on Wednesday. The attack was largely repelled with help from the US and the West, but several rockets hit their target, including an Israeli air force base.

Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, told an emergency Security Council meeting on Wednesday that an Israeli backlash was inevitable.

“Let me be clear: Israel will defend itself. We will act,” he said. “And I assure you that the consequences Iran will suffer as a result of its actions will be far greater than it could have ever imagined.”

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said the attack was in response to the killings of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah and warned Israel that it would strike again if there was an Israeli response.

Israel was helped by the United States, Western and Arab partners in April to repel a one-time rocket fire from Iran, prompting Washington to urge Israel to hold off a counterattack.

But the US government is not trying to dissuade Israel from striking back this time, CNN said, citing two senior US officials.

“No one says don’t answer. Nobody is saying, ‘Take victory,'” one source said, referring to Washington’s argument to Israel in April.

war or peace

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian accused Israel of trying to force his country to respond and said Tehran “hopes not for war but for peace.”

“We were asked to remain calm. For the sake of peace, we have maintained self-restraint,” he said at a joint press conference with the Emir of Qatar in Doha. “If [Israel] We will react harder and harder to actions.”

Israel declared Secretary-General Antonio Guterres persona non grata for his alleged inadequate opposition to the Iranian attack.

In a later speech to the Security Council, Guterres condemned Iran’s attack on Israel the day before, adding that “the deadly vicious cycle of mutual violence must end.”

“Time is running out,” he warned.

Meanwhile, Israel announced the deaths of eight Israeli soldiers in Lebanon, days after it launched an invasion of the country ostensibly aimed at stopping Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants’ rocket fire on its border communities.

Israel has landed devastating blows against Hezbollah, killing its leader Hassan Nasrallah and much of its senior leadership in an airstrike in Beirut on Friday.

The attacks killed up to 1,000 people, including many civilians, and displaced nearly a million people.

A senior Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed in an explosion in Tehran in July, an assassination widely attributed to Israel, which drew Iran’s ire but did not prompt an immediate response at the time.