How will Israel and the US respond to Iran's attack on Israel? | DW News

an air assault launched by Iran against Israel overnight the Israeli military says more than 300 missiles were fired and drones almost all of the missiles were intercepted by Israel and the United States the United Kingdom and Jordan also shot down drones now Air raid sirens rang out across Israel and explosions were heard in Jerusalem. The Iranian revolutionary guard says the assault is retaliation for an

attack

on its consulate in Syria on April 1 that killed 16 people, including several Iranian generals. It is the first time that Iran has launched a direct military

attack

against Israel despite decades. hostilities there has now been widespread international condemnation of the Iranian attack President Joe Biden reiterated the United States' strong support for Israel Secretary General Antonio Gues criticized what he called a serious escalation by Iran The UN Security Council has called an emergency meeting German Foreign Minister Analena B also condemned the attack, saying it could plunge the entire region into chaos, and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called the assault reckless and vowed to defend Israeli security.

The Israeli authorities have now made the meeting clear, people no longer need to stay close to the air. shelters of fury, but our cor

respond

ent, amen, ISF says it was a tense and noisy night in Jerusalem, as you can hear the sirens ringing, you can hear the sirens ringing in Jerusalem, you can see that the Iron Dome is active , air defense is active in the skies uh so we're heading to shelter now but uh a lot of chaos in the streets a lot of screaming uh people running for cover let's get the latest from our cor

respond

ent Tanya Kramer joining us now live from Jerusalem Tanya welcome, tell us the latest on the situation in Israel this morning, although all is quiet for now, but the military says they remain on high alert, however, the airspace has reopened, we have been told, so, but this is coming, of course, for many. for Israelis and Palestinians, you know, waking up after a night like that is a somewhat different reality after these direct and unprecedented attacks, from Iran, from Iran, on Israel, we are now hearing more details that

will

also come this morning from the Israeli military .

He said that more than 300 planes and missiles were launched from Iran, but also from other countries, such as from Lebanon, there were rockets from Yemen, but also some from Iraq. They are saying that most were intercepted before they reached Israeli territory. Air Defense Force by a coalition of strategic partners just as the Israeli military has said and also said that 99% were intercepted with some ballistic missiles, however, reaching and hitting somewhere in Israel, one of them was attacking. They said Never Teim Air Base in the South, we don't have a full assessment there, but they say it was just minor damage, but also a child had been seriously injured, potentially by Shner now, of course.

After all this happened, the question now is, do you know what Israel

will

do? How will they retaliate? How will they respond to this? That's actually the big question here, Tanya, what do you think Israel's next step will be? Are there signs that we could Well, this is, of course, the question right now. There was also a phone call between US President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu over the course of the night and there is an indication that the US does not want to see a broader regional escalation coming out of that, they have also said that the US actually helped Israel shoot down almost all of the incoming drones and missiles and that Israel should see this as a success in a way that they Could, um, restart all of those, at least, those missiles that are coming in now?

Now it will be in the hands of the war cabinet to decide the next steps, uh, Prime Minister Benyamin nany and the defense minister, um, uh, YF Galand, and we just have to wait and see if you know how they will decide if there will be retaliation and you know that this could affect, of course, most of the region here and many do not want to see, of course, a broader escalation Tanya, thank you very much for your reporting that it is Tanya Kramer for us in Jerusalem now the president of the United States Joe Biden says he will convene G7 countries to plan a diplomatic response to Iran's attack.

Biden announced the meeting after speaking by phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with Biden now telling Netanyahu that Israel demonstrated a remarkable ability to defend itself against unprecedented attacks, sending a clear message that Israel's security cannot be seen threatened. Biden also said that the United States has not seen any attacks against its own troops in the region, but confirmed that US forces helped Israel shoot down almost all of the drones and missiles launched from Iran, let's get the perspective from Washington DC and talk to our reporter Stefan Simons Stefan Biden has cut short his weekend trip to Delaware to hold crisis talks with his Homeland Security team.

We know that his defense secretary, uh, Lloyd Austin, previously spoke with his Israeli counterpart, what has the United States said publicly about this attack? Well, of course, the president of the United States, as well as the entire Administration, quickly officially supported Israel and with statements, this strong quote of support for Israel comes from a National Security Council statement that was given. On Saturday, the president reiterated that this will be a position of the United States that when Israel is attacked and has to defend itself, the United States will do everything it can to support Israel and did so during this drone and missile attack.

For Iran, the United States is saying that it shut down 70 SL drones with missiles during this attack and helped Israel by doing so defend itself, but as my colleague Tanya Jerusalem said, the Biden Administration is very, very interested in actually putting a lid on it. On this now, Iran has apparently concluded or has said that the UN Mission, the Permanent Mission of Iran to the UN, relatively early on Saturday, still said, okay, that concludes the matter for us, we retaliate and the Administration Biden is Now, as we also reported in phone calls and communications with Israeli counterparts, we say that it is now necessary to return to measured responses, not retaliation by Israel so as not to escalate this into a broader, large-scale regional conflict, so let's dig deeper a little more on the Washington situation.

Support, of course, support for Israel has been a pillar of our, um, Foreign Affairs for decades. What do you think the strong support promised here will mean in concrete terms? Two pronged approach, that's militarily speaking, the United States has a lot of assets, Navy assets and air Defense Assets in the Red Sea region uh uh directly from Horus Eastern Mediterranean uh this is sophisticated weaponry uh fighter jets and whatever um and there will be defensive support for Israel uh that doesn't mean boots on the ground American military engagement with American soldiers anywhere near or near or anywhere in the region there, on behalf of Israel or anyone else, but support with military assets , specifically geospatial intelligence, radar information and intelligence, etc., etc., this will come from the United States and will be continuously provided to Israel.

That's what that means, on the other hand, is, of course, diplomatic support and we already see the results of this, it is reaching all of the United States' partners and allies, not just NATO partners, uh, and friends, and uh in In Europe, they are also partners and allies in the Middle East and, with this Arab partner, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, those countries, the United States is trying to make sure that everyone is on the same page page when trying to reduce the tension here. Now I really want to avoid a large-scale regional conflict. Thank you so much.

Stefan Simons, DW correspondent in Washington DC. Israeli Defense Minister Yav Galant praised Israeli forces for blocking the attack and paid tribute to Israel's allies for their support. The state of Israel has faced an attack by hundreds of missiles and drones. The Israel Defense Forces have done an impressive job blocking the offensive alongside the United States and other partners. We managed to defend the territory of the State of Israel. The whole world saw it tonight. who Iran really is: it is a terrorist state that attacks Israel from a distance of 1,500 kilometers and tries to activate all its representatives, but the world has also seen the power of a coalition and how Israel stands together with the United States and other countries to block this attack.

And I'm joined in the studio by Shaie Rosanes, DW's Middle East analyst. Shaie, it's good to see you again. Do you think it will be easy for Israel and the United States to agree on a clear response to this Iranian attack? Another battle is coming, you know, when it comes to Israel and the United States, trying to find an answer together because, as the Americans see it, Israel needs to respond according to the outcome, which seems to be quite, you know, almost poor. Um, if the Iranians wanted to, it seems that the way the American Defense Forces are interpreting it is that this was primarily a declarative statement by the Iranians that we have shown the Israelis that we can, we are not afraid, but eventually it has become very little damage. the terrain is more limited than might have been correct um and then on the other hand when you look at the Israelis, they focus mainly on the fact that this is unprecedented um and that this is an attack on the sovereignty of Israel and focus on Iran's intentions and now it is the battle between Israel.

I mean, battle would be a harsh word, but there will be back and forth on how to agree on a response, is it going to be determined by intent? And, um, this is what Israel would want to do and then there are the Americans, we see them, they are trying to de-escalate what they want, they are not very interested in an escalation into their regional war and that will take us. We will definitely see some back and forth the next day and what does the fact that this response from Iran was quieter than it could have been and the fact that two weeks passed after this attack on the Iranian Embassy in Damascus the April 1, to see this type of response, what does that tell you?

First of all, there is a very clear chain of hierarchy and decision-making in Iran that takes time, but you also know that we are used to seeing this. shows the war between Israel and Iran, this back and forth of attacks, cyber attacks and so on, a lot of it, uh, in the shadows, a lot of it not without warning and the decision here was definitely for the Iranians, it was determined, You know, because of the Americans. uh and we have seen a lot of Intelligence communications about there being back and forth, it was necessary for the Iranians to show that they are not afraid and this is also something that connects to October 7, the biggest asset that Israel lost.

October 7 is deterrence uh when the Israelis launched the attack on Damascus in October on April 1 um just two weeks ago um the assumption was that the Iranians were not going to operate uh so severely definitely not from Iranian soil definitely not directly on the soil Israeli So the fact that the Iranians did that shows us that something in the very delicate balance of this war, which has never been official, but very clear, has been broken. Do you think we have reached a point of no return in that sense? We are moving from this kind of shadow war to a direct attack on Israel, it depends largely on its response and this is exactly what the Americans are trying to do: they are trying to avoid a response that, as you know, will lead to an escalation, but The Israelis feel that one of their important needs in their long-term defense strategy is to rebuild them and that can only be done the way they see it, by being very aggressive in their responses to any attempted attack.

I think we will see an immediate response in Israel. This is also partly why you know the pace we're seeing in this type of conflict between Israel and Iran has been going on for a while, but the last word hasn't been said yet. Thank you. It's always our Middle East analyst, Shie Rosanes, and now we get to talk to Hans Yakob Schindler, senior director of the counterextremism project. Thank you very much for speaking with us at DW News. I'd like to start with his opinion on what happened here. What do you think of last night's attack?

Thank you very much for inviting me. It was clearly an Iranian escalation, which is unnecessary, unfortunately, it really complicates things, but it was an escalation again with an Iranian twist, so what happened was immediately after the drones. and the rockets were launched from Iranian territory Iranian state television officially announced the launch giving the Israelis hours in the case of the drones and plenty of time in the case of the missiles to prepare to defend themselves, even with the help of the Americans. Clearly, the Iranians wanted to show off a demonstration force and minimize the damage that demonstration force would cause to Israel, including, of course, having their UN mission here.in New York and there will be a security council meeting later tonight. time in Germany here in New York about this attack, getting the UN mission of all places to announce that this could be on our side, this is our retaliation.

Case closed if you decide to close the case and then have the permanent representative say: We no longer want any escalation and we only used our right to self-defense in accordance with the UN Charter, which of course cowardly denies the point that you have that to be a proportional response and 300 rockets and drones are not exactly a part of Theion's eyes are a proportional response, so if I understand you correctly, it seems that you think that in this case it is necessary for Iran to be seen as such. something in response do you think Iran could have mounted a stronger attack and was this something it considered?

Yeah, I mean, they haven't made all the necessary efforts. Do not forget. Hisbah is, in fact, a fact. The extent of the Iranian regime in Lebanon has a very considerable arsenal that has the potential to overwhelm Israeli air defenses, as we have seen in Ukraine. The problem is not the Iranians' individual Shai drones, but the number of Shah drones being fired. That's the problem, and this number that shot up last night was clearly not enough to overwhelm Israeli air defenses nor, in my opinion, was it designed to do so, it was simply force inside Iran. Now, of course, the regime celebrates this as a great success, but the problem is that both sides have lost deterrence here, the Israelis have lost DETS because it is unprecedented that the first time since the Islamic revolution that Iran has attacked itself itself from its territory, not through the proxy Israel, but also through the Iranian failure to attack anything, literally anything in Israel. um it means that now they've just shown that potentially their systems are not good enough to resist Israel, which then, of course, puts water in the middle of those in Israel who say, look, this is a good time to give an answer. very forceful and they will pay a very little price because the Iranians have just shown us that their system is not as good as they thought, so deterrence is compromised as you say.

Do you think that now, after almost more than a decade of proxy war, some kind of threshold has been crossed here? where we have seen a direct Iranian attack on Israeli soil, um just a small correction, the proxy war between Israel and Iran did not start a decade ago, it started much, much longer ago, from the beginning, the enmity against Israel was part of the central ideological tenants of the Islamic Republic of Iran, so it has been at a higher level in the last decade, but it has always been there, it has always been one of the central ideological themes, as I said, of the Iranian regime.

What has happened now is that we are really in a new situation in the Middle East and there is really no good way out because both sides have to find a new balance again and we have not yet reached that point where it is clear what that new one would really mean. balance. How concerned are you about probability? of escalation here, how do you expect the Israelis to react? I mean, it's a very, very, very tense situation and any misstep by either side will really lead to a potentially uncontrollable escalation. Here we already have a virtual shooting war, not only with Gaza but also with the Houthis and the Hispanics for many months since October 7 and now we have this direct attack here if the Israeli response is to attack inside Iran and then there are also levels Of escalation that the Israelis could choose, they could simply attack some of the military facilities from which those rockets and drones were launched.

This would be a classic US response: attack those places from where they were attacked, but the Israelis could also decide to first finally resolve what the Israeli government has always said is the main threat, the real strategic threat from Iran is its program. nuclear and attack Iranian nuclear facilities inside Iran, which would be another major escalation, hence these anonymous American officials who are talking to the media here in the United States saying, "Biden said." We will defend Netanyahu and we are very happy to be on his side, but we will not support him in any offensive operation inside Iran now, if this is what the American president has told the Israeli Prime Minister whose country has just been attacked, it is a very unprecedented statement from an American president and really shows how deep the concern is in the US administration that this could now get out of control.

Do you think the US administration is also concerned about the spread outside the region? Well, look, I mean my personal evaluation. was that, uh, the Iranians were very likely to respond with attacks on Israeli diplomatic institutions and officials outside the region, which is something the Iranians had done before. Remember that there was an attack in South America, in Argentina, against an embassy and a cultural center in the In the 1990s, even in Berlin, where you are now, in 1992 there was a murder of some exiled Iranian politicians in the Mykonos attack, There was a bombing of Israeli tourists in 2012 in Bulgaria, so the Islamic Republic of Iran has shown that it can also attack and strike outside. uh the region with the help of its agents in each of these cases, so you know that there are levels of retaliation that Iran has not yet taken and what it expects Iran's proxies in the region, such as Hezbollah and the Houthi rebels, to do .

Well here, I want to say that one has to differentiate between the representatives and the control that Iran ultimately has over these representatives. Now isbah is a 100% Iranian creation; was the core of the formation of hisbah during the Lebanese Civil War in the 1980s from the beginning, so hisbah really is an extension of the Islamic Republic, other representatives, especially the Houthis, were actually recently added to the portfolio of Iranian representatives only after 2015 and the attack by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the Arab states against the Houthis in Yemen, did the Yans see? There is an opportunity here to strengthen their relationship, build with the Houthis to essentially enable their regional rival, which is why Saudi now claims that the Houthis are therefore less indebted to the Iranians than their own and therefore Iran will always be able to tell the Houthis to shoot if the Iranians.

Ultimately, we can tell the Houthis to stop shooting and they will. That remains to be seen, for example, for months now we have really tried to calm down the Houthis and tell them that it is not worth continuing to harass shipments in the red zone. Mar and so far the Iranians, even if they tried, do not seem to be able to stop them, so the escalation may also come inadvertently by these representatives who, as you know, are in various measures of control of Iran now, as you say , we have seen shipments. disrupted in the Red Sea, what do you think could be the effect here on the energy markets if we continue to see an escalation in the region so far?

International shipping has managed to avoid a real crisis um um when it comes to the Red Sea of ​​Of course, container prices have doubled. Insurance has tripled and ships must now travel around the African continent, which adds up to 10 days. However, this is not really affecting energy exports so far. However, the Iranians, just before launching those rockets and drones, actually took Israeli property. or link the ship to the Zodiac group of a bid uh the MS MSC Aries in the huda vua port pus straight as a hostage essentially as pirates took a helicopter and basically forced the ship into an Iranian port now if this continues the straight In fact, this is on a very large energy supply route, not only for Saudi and UAE oil, but also for Qatari LNG, which largely supplies both Australia and Japan and , increasingly, to the European Union, including Germany, because, as the German government and the EU say, the LG gas deals with Qatar are partly to replace the gas we no longer buy from Russia, so any problems in pus flow is, of course, a big immediate concern for world energy prices;

However, this is also a vague proposal for the Iranians because their tankers also need to leave the straight path to the moose and the United States has enough military assets in the Persian Gulf to ensure that, if other ships cannot leave or enter, Iranian oil tankers will definitely not leave or enter the street either. Hopefully this is a stage of escalation that the Iranians are not contemplating or assuming, and whatever Israel is doing, and I'm curious if you could tell us what kind of diplomatic efforts we've seen from Israel's allies in Europe, including Germany, to try to de-escalate. the situation here in the lead up to this, the US administration really went all out, they were communicating very clearly.

I remind you that President Biden simply said that the Iranians should not attack Israel, they asked China, Turkey, um. Germany, the United Kingdom, the European states and the Arab states will talk to the Iranians to tell them not to do this. None of this has materialized now, of course, there will be a G7 meeting later today. There is a security council meeting. China has already warned against escalation, it is certainly not in Russia's interest to see its newfound ally in the Ukraine war, Iran significantly weakened, so there are significant forces that can tone it down, um, it all really depends on what Let the Israelis and now the Iranians decide.

You are in a very uncomfortable position. You can always decide to start a climb. Rarely are you the one who decides when to stop it. Thank you very much for joining us today with your ideas. It's Hans Yakob Schindler from the counterextremism project. We appreciate it. your time thank you very much for inviting me