Iran to respond with ‘imminent attack’ on Israel | Gabrielle Weiniger

Hai, the leader of Iran said that this is essentially an

attack

on Iranian soil, so Israel initially

respond

ed only with comments from the foreign minister that we have seen cats from Israel reporting on, tweeting at X, he said that if Iran

attack

s from its territory Israel will

respond

and attack Iran, he wrote that in both Fary and Hebrew, US President Joe Biden has reiterated the United States' strong support for Israel's right to defend itself following threats from Iran. Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Kamini said Israel must be punished, but Israel's foreign policy minister has warned of retaliation.

The Hamas political leader also announced that his three children were killed in an Israeli airstrike. The IDF has confirmed that there is a video circulating online showing him discovering the news. Apparently he's still completely Cam and continues with their meeting, but. you have to wonder what's going on H Gabriel Vineger is the Times' Israel correspondent and he joined us now Gabrielle good morning, good morning Callum, shall we start first of all with President Biden and the warnings that Iran is threatening to launch a significant attack? I quote after the attack on the Iranian consulate in Syria, what else do we understand about I guess the scope of the level of this warning?

Well, we have seen the US intelligence report first reported on Bloomberg warning of a major missile or precision drone attack by Iran or one of its proxies against military and government targets in Israel, that report said it's

imminent

, meaning that will happen in the next few days, as you mentioned, it's all in response to the Israeli attack on an Iranian consulate. which is also considered a kind of revolutionary God headquarters in the Syrian capital of Damascus, but that was the first of its kind and Iran's leader Humi said it is essentially an attack on Iranian soil, so Israel has responded initially just with a comment from the Foreign Minister that we have seen Israel cat reporting uh tweeting on The argument is that since April 1, Israel has been strengthening its defenses and has been on high alert for this precision drone attack.

They have called up all their army air reservists who were on leave, so that entire unit is mobilized. Their embassies abroad are also on high alert and something I just noticed on the ground, by Israeli citizens themselves, they are not actually traveling right now to places like Dubai and especially Turkey, so what they really are searching is an attack. from directly from Iran or from their proxies um um Hezbollah on the northern border um from Lebanon the Houthis in Yemen who have been carrying out um and carrying out attacks in the Red Sea and disrupting the sea route there um all of this, of course, starting from October, since October 7 and the United States promised to support Israel.

We know that Israeli Defense Minister Yav Garan and US Secretary of State Anthony Blinkin spoke last night and Blinkin reiterated his support and said the US supports Israel. Against any threat from Iran on its proxies, what we can say for sure is that any attack on Israel would certainly widen the conflict and, um, draw in the United States, Iran and all their derivatives. I note that Israel has not claimed responsibility for the attack on the consulate. um, although you know, the consensus is that that's what happened and I wonder, Gabrielle, if Israel would do that without you knowing how to assess the possible consequences of an attack like that, it's hard to say, um, they haven't claimed it, but there have been There are illusions about it and I think we have passed the point where we can say an alleged Israeli attack.

You know, everyone knows it was an Israeli attack and you assume they would take that into account. They killed two senior commanders and five others. members of the irgc um, you would think that they were taken into account regional consequences and maybe they did, maybe they did in terms of other developments in the area, let's look at the murder of um, well, the children, three children of the political leader of Hamas in an Israeli attack yesterday I guess there are two things in this: what happened and two what impact this will have particularly on the negotiations.

Could Hamas derail negotiations as a result of the incident? Well, this is another question where one would wonder if Israel has considered the implications of such an attack um and in this case Israel has confirmed that they murdered three of his sons he is the head of the Hamas political bureau he is currently exiled in Qatar um the armies say that their three sons were on their way to commit some type of terrorist act. We've also seen unconfirmed reports at least from the military, but sources on the ground in Gaza say that three of his grandchildren, excuse me, were also killed in this attack.

They were all in a car that Israel attacked. They were driving to families to celebrate Eid, which of course is the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, but this is not something that unusual because there are 60 members of his family who have been killed since the beginning of the war. in October, including his brother, who was killed in the early days of the war, and her sister, who lives in southern Israel, was also arrested earlier this month for collaborating with Hamas. Heny has insisted that this will not interfere with the ongoing negotiations that the United States, Egypt and Qatar are breaking up, but I think the broader fear is that this will ruin the talks.

They are currently at the stage where they are waiting for Hamas to respond to the latest proposal, so I assume that you will see from this Hamas response whether or not this will affect the negotiations or just increase the potential for escalation, which you know, it seems like this is the way it's run, yeah, in terms of what it does. I was also reading your article in today's Times World Section about tensions between Israel and the United States, also given President Biden's stern words toward Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel over the last week to 10 days or so, I'm guessing this is now idea of ​​some kind of humanitarian truce. this idea that civilians in Gaza should be prioritized, sort of a sense of growing frustration on Biden's part directed at Netanyahu, and I wonder if this attack would figure into that conversation as well.

I think I think Biden would say that this has potentially frustrated negotiations and we've heard, you know, increased criticism of Netanyahu and he said some of his harshest things until the other day, uh, the last, I think it was yesterday, He actually said that Israel is making a big mistake in Gaza and I just don't agree with Netanyahu's approach. I think the peak of these deteriorating relations was the murder of the seven Central Kitchen Aid workers in the world, where Biden told Netanyahu to change course and allow more humanitarian assistance to Gaza. It's unclear if that's happening.

The UN and Israel give very different reports as to how much aid is currently coming into Gaza and we know that some of the promises Israel has made, for example opening the Ares crossing and the port of Ashod to allow more flow in , have not been fulfilled. It hasn't happened yet and yesterday I spoke to the Israeli officials who were in charge of these things and they don't have a date for it and in fact I know that Aras Crossing is still in tatters from the October 7 attack and there are no plans to renovate it , so it's not very clear whether or not that's going to happen and there will be more help coming in.

There's also the fallout from the possible Rafa operation and the US says they're not aware of this happening anytime soon, but Benjamin is saying we have a date, so there are all these points of tension and disagreements, um, but it What could happen is that this situation with Iran and US President Joe Biden promising to back Israel could bring those allies closer together because Netanyahu has always insisted throughout his decades in leadership that Iran is the biggest threat. . Let's get an analysis from Steve Erlanger. He is the chief diplomatic correspondent for Europe for the New York Times.

President Biden's tone and message over the last 10 days or so has been going backwards and even though he's doing well, it's hard to know if he's doing well, of course, that would be in the pudding, um. but it has significantly influenced Netanyahu in two ways, one to allow more aid into Gaza and two in these ceasefire negotiations, the Americans have put forward their own proposal, which is unusual. Hamas has been rejecting it but is considering it a lot. he wants at least this six-week ceasefire to bring more aid to Gaza. Amas now says that under his old rules, which would mean producing 40 live hostages of a certain category, I don't think there will be 40 live hostages in that category, so Biden's part. frustrated, but on Iran, Iran, has been very clear, I mean, it has always supported Israel's right to exist, Israel's right to defend itself and Iran is a large country, it is not a mass, so I think it was a very important message he had. send to Iran, which is to be careful not only with what you do in retaliation against Israel but also against the American troops that are in the region, also in terms of the potential for escalation here with Israel and Iran, uh, we had the attack on the Consulate . in Damascus a few days ago, by Israel, I'm surprised they wouldn't do that without taking into account something like the cost of doing business, something like a response from Iran, would there ever be direct attacks on each other?

Or is he always on the sidelines of the escalation? I guess well, that's been the deal so far, what's the margin now, this building that was hidden in Damascus, the Israelis say it wasn't the consulate, it was a building next to the embassy. uh the Iranians say no, no, it was part of our embassy, ​​so it was our territory, so that changed the equation for the Iranians, now they are in a bind because they promised from the top down to the supreme leader to retaliate, but I need to retaliate in a way that does not provoke a much larger escalation or direct war between Israel and Iran.

I mean, I don't think either side wants it. Iran certainly doesn't want it either, so we'll see what. they end up doing I think they've said we'll take our time, we'll think about it in the meantime they have Israel panicking, which is part of, you know, a sensible procedure for them, um, but yeah, the risks. of regional escalation are greater, I mean, something could go wrong, there could be a miscalculation, something could land in the wrong place, could you know that a missile could hit a kindergarten and then who the hell knows what would happen? Yes, what do you think of Joe Biden? internal situation also, uh politically speaking, I mean the speaker of the House of Representatives, the Republican Mike Johnson, said shamefully since October 7 that Joe Biden has transformed into an anti-Israel president, there is really no other way to characterize him .

I wonder if you think first of all if that's fair and secondly, if there is a change here or something to consider here, that it is possible to be anti-Netanyahu but pro-Israel and that the line that Biden is trying to follow well, I think It's unfair, I mean Joe. Biden is probably the most pro-Israel president of all time, and that is why he has done everything politically possible to defend Israel when the entire world has been criticizing its war operation inside Gaza. Now Biden feels that too and is very angry with Netanyahu's decision. quite stubborn and he has been pushing, as I say, for more humanitarian aid and for this ceasefire and I think he is making some progress, but outside in the party he feels differently.

I mean, the Democratic Party on the left of the party is basically very angry. to Israel and feels pro-Palestinian and then he has Arab American voters in key states like Michigan who are understandably upset with him and his policies, but you know we're on the campaign trail and Trump is hanging around and Mike Johnson, the speaker of the house, He's trying himself to balance his loyalty to Trump and his loyalty to calling it real politics for