I have been sitting here trying to figure out what to write about what we just witnessed. Just like October 7th, the shocking attack on Israel that just took place altered the course of history. This was the first time that Iran ever attacked Israel directly, and I was flooded with emails by readers that were concerned about World War III. So now that the Iranian attack is over, what will Israel do now? That is the big question. If Israel directly attacks Iran, the Iranians will inevitably respond and the conflict could spiral out of control. But if the Israelis do not strike back, they will look weak and the Iranians could feel like they will be able to get away with similar things in the future.
Overall, the Iranians sent more than 300 drones and missiles toward Israeli territory…
Two Israeli officials told the New York Times that Iran launched 185 drones, 36 cruise missiles and 110 surface-to-surface missiles as part of the unprecedented attack on Israel. According to the sources, “most of the launches were carried out from Iranian territory, while a small portion of them came from Iraq and Yemen.” Besides the U.S, Britain and Jordan also helped Israel intercept the launches.
The good news is that the U.S. military and the IDF were able to shoot down 99 percent of them…
At 7:15 am IDF Spokesperson R.-Adm. Daniel Hagari said that 99% of the aerial threats were shot down, which he said was a strategic achievement.
That was very good news, and in the end very little damage was done…
He said virtually all of the weapons were intercepted before entering Israeli territory and he reported only minor damage to one military base from the few ballistic missiles that did land in the country. Hagari confirmed that a 10-year-old girl had been “severely injured by shrapnel,” but said “as far as we know, there are no additional casualties.”
The Iranians are trying to frame this strike as a victory, but the truth is that it was a huge defeat.
So that gives Israel options.
If a tremendous amount of damage had been done inside Israel, the Israeli government would have felt a need to respond very forcefully.
But since the Iranian attack was such a failure, that gives Israel the option of simply walking away.
In the immediate aftermath of the attack, that is what Joe Biden was encouraging Israel to do…
President Joe Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the US will not support any counterattack against Iran, sources have revealed.
Biden spoke with Netanyahu in a late-night phone call after Iran bombarded Israel with hundreds of missiles and drones on Saturday in response to a drone strike in Syria that killed 12 Iranians, including two top generals.
A senior White House official told Axios that Biden made it clear to Netanyahu that US forces would not participate in any further operations. Netanyahu said he understood.
Biden reportedly told the Israeli Prime Minister: ‘You got a win. Take the win’, amid fears amongst White House officials that an Iran attack will lead to a greater war in the region.
Of course if someone sent more than 300 drones and missiles at U.S. cities, Biden would be singing a much different tune.
In that case, the U.S. military would already be pounding whoever dared to launch such an attack.
And it appears that Israel was ready to hit Iran really hard right away, but the conversation with Biden apparently persuaded Netanyahu to call off an attack for now…
US President Joe Biden dissuaded Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from greenlighting an immediate retaliatory strike against Iran after it launched around 300 attack drones and missiles at Israel last night, the New York Times reports.
According to the report, several members of Israel’s war cabinet had been in favor of launching a response attack, but the lack of serious damage caused by Iran, in addition to Netanyahu’s conversation with Biden, led to it being called off.
This doesn’t mean that there will be no Israeli response.
The Israeli war cabinet was scheduled to meet on Sunday, and I am sure that they were discussing their options.
The UN Security Council also met on Sunday, although it wasn’t expected to do much of anything…
The United Nations Security Council will hold an emergency meeting Sunday over Iran’s unprecedented drone and missile attack on Israel, the body’s president said.
A spokesperson for Malta, which holds the rotating presidency this month, told the press Saturday evening that the Security Council was aiming for the meeting to be held at 4:00 p.m. (11 p.m. Israel time) Sunday after Israel requested the council condemn Iran’s attack and designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization.
The wealthy western countries do not approve of what Iran has done, but they are desperate to keep a major war from erupting in the region.
In particular, Joe Biden knows that a major war in the Middle East would be very bad for his chances in November.
So a tremendous amount of pressure will be put on Israel to stand down.
And Iran has already warned that it will hit Israel again with even greater force if Israel strikes Iranian territory…
Tehran has warned it will strike again with greater force if Israel or the US retaliate for the Iranian strike on Israel that used more than 300 drones and missiles on Saturday night.
The air raids, the country’s first ever direct attack on the Israeli state, brought a years-long shadow war into the open and threatened to draw the region into a broader conflagration as Israel said it was considering its response.
If missiles start flying back and forth, events could quickly spiral out of control.
But Israel has always believed in responding with force when it is attacked.
And I believe that there will eventually be a response.
Some are calling for Israel to strike Iran’s nuclear program.
If there was ever a golden opportunity to do that, it would be now.
We shall just have to wait and see what happens.
Even though it is uncertain whether or not Israel will directly strike Iran, on Sunday the IDF was conducting “retaliatory strikes” in southern Lebanon…
In a series of retaliatory strikes, Israel has intensified its attacks on southern Lebanon, targeting several areas overnight and in the early morning hours.
The escalating violence has raised concerns of a broader conflict in the region.
In one case, a building that was a “significant weapons manufacturing site” was completely destroyed…
A source within Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group said Israel struck one of its buildings close to the Syrian border today, as tensions soared after Iran directly attacked Israel.
The source told news agency AFP: ‘The Israeli strike targeted an area… near Baalbek and targeted a two-storey building belonging to Hezbollah,’ adding that there were no casualties reported.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency also reported that ‘an enemy air strike targeted a building’ in the village of Nabi Sheet and ‘destroyed it’.
The IDF later confirmed the strike on the ‘significant weapons manufacturing site’ in the Nabi Sheet area.
So Israel is already hitting back.
But striking Iran directly would be an extremely bold move.
An all-out war with Iran could easily take an apocalyptic turn, and both sides realize this.
We really are in uncharted territory, and it won’t take much to push events over the edge.
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