TEHRAN (AFP): Iran’s top diplomat said Thursday his country has told the United States that it is not seeking escalation after an unprecedented attack on Israel.
The Islamic republic carried out its first-ever direct attack on Israel, firing drones and missiles on the weekend. The barrage — to which Israel’s army chief has vowed a response — was retaliation for an April 1 air strike on Tehran’s consulate in Damascus. Iran blamed Israel for the consular attack.
Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, who is in New York to attend a UN Security Council meeting, said his country has “tried to tell the United States clearly” that Iran is “not looking for the expansion of tension in the region,” he said in a video posted by his ministry.
Iran and the United States have had no diplomatic relations since 1980, but neutral Switzerland represents Washington’s interests in Iran. Both the US and Iran have alluded to the Swiss role as an intermediary.
According to Amir-Abdollahian, Iran communicated with Washington “before and after” launching its attack on Israel.
Iran informed the United States that the decision by the Islamic Republic of Iran to “respond to the (Israel) regime is final,” and the matter concluded, he said.
Iran’s retaliation against Israel left a girl severely wounded but caused little damage. It followed the strike in Damascus that killed seven members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, including two generals.
“Before the operation, we clearly told the American side that we will not target American bases and interests in the region,” Amir-Abdollahian said.
The Islamic republic has celebrated the attack as a success but President Ebrahim Raisi warned of “a fierce and severe response” to further “aggression” by Israel.
During his trip to New York, Amir-Abdollahian is set to meet United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and his counterparts from other countries.
The United States, Israel’s top ally, has said it would soon impose new sanctions on Iran’s missile and drone programme following the strike on Israel, and said it expects allies to take parallel measures.
The US and other allies helped Israel intercept the Iranian strike.
Iran attack requires ‘response’ from G7: Germany
The G7 must respond to Iran’s attack on Israel, Germany’s foreign minister said Thursday, adding that measures were being discussed with her counterparts at a meeting in Italy.
“We are also discussing further measures here at the G7, because of course there must be a response to this unprecedented incident,” Annalena Baerbock told reporters on the island of Capri.
She added however that “there must be no further escalation in the region, that would be fatal for its people”.
The G7 nations — France, Germany, Italy, the UK, the United States, Canada and Japan — are expected to call for individual sanctions against people implicated in Iran’s missile supply chain, according to an Italian diplomatic source.
European Union leaders agreed Wednesday to impose new sanctions on Iran’s drone and missile producers over the weekend attack, which caused little damage after most of the projectiles were intercepted.
“We will have to review the system” of sanctions “in order to enlarge it and make it more efficient”, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell — who was also invited to Capri — told reporters Thursday.
He said that since July 2023 there have been limits on exports to Iran by European firms of “the components that allow the production of these kind of arms”.
“So we will increase it,” he said.
“The important thing is the implementation of our decision,” he added.
He also called for restraint from Israel, saying the region was “on the edge” of war.
The United States, Israel’s top ally, has said it would soon impose new sanctions on Iran’s missile and drone programme and said it expects allies to follow with parallel measures.
Iran’s drone and missile attack, launched in response to a deadly strike on Iran’s Damascus consulate widely blamed on Israel, has ratcheted up already sky-high tensions with the Israel-Hamas war raging in Gaza.
Baerbock and Britain’s foreign minister David Cameron visited Israel on Wednesday, where they called for calm amid fears Israel will retaliate.
Cameron urged the G7 to adopt new “coordinated sanctions” against Iran, which he accused of being “behind so much of the malign activity in this region”.
The G7 ministers were discussing the Middle East situation on Thursday morning, followed by a session on the Huthi attacks in the Red Sea that have disrupted global shipping.
They will then join special guests NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba for talks on the war in Ukraine.
Two Hezbollah fighters killed in Israel strikes
Lebanon’s Hezbollah on Thursday said two of its fighters had been killed as Israel appeared to intensify strikes on south Lebanon following an attack by the Iran-backed group that wounded 14 Israeli soldiers.
Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging near-daily cross-border fire since Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, triggering war in the Gaza Strip.
Hezbollah’s attacks in recent days have included an increased use of explosive drones and have wounded people in Israel, which has struck increasingly deeper into Lebanon in recent weeks.
Hezbollah said Thursday that two of its fighters had been “martyred on the road to Jerusalem”, the phrase it uses to refer to members killed by Israeli fire, without specifying where or when they died.
The Hezbollah-affiliated Islamic Health Committee, which has emergency responders in south Lebanon, told AFP two people were killed in the border village of Kafr Kila.
The Lebanese Risala Scout association, which also operates rescue teams in the south and is affiliated with the Hezbollah-allied Amal movement, told AFP an “Israeli drone” carried out the strike.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported “the Israeli enemy” attacked south Lebanon’s Marjayoun district “and the villages of Khiam and Kfar Kila in particular” with “strikes and heavy artillery and phosphorus” overnight.
It said Israel targeted Khiam alone “with more than 100 strikes including artillery and phosphorus”.
Lebanon has accused Israel of deploying white phosphorus, whose use against civilians and non-military targets as well as against military targets near civilians is banned.
On Wednesday, the Israeli military said 14 soldiers were wounded, six of them seriously, in an attack on northern Israel.
It later said “fighter jets struck significant Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure” in the Baalbek area, a bastion of the powerful Shiite Muslim group in the country’s east.
Wednesday’s exchange came with regional tensions high after Iran launched a direct attack on Israel over the weekend in retaliation for a deadly strike on Tehran’s Damascus consulate that has been widely blamed on Israel.
On Tuesday, Israel said its strikes in south Lebanon killed two local Hezbollah commanders and another operative, with the Iran-backed group saying three of its members were killed as it launched rockets in retaliation.
Hezbollah says it is acting in support of Gazans and ally Hamas with its attacks on Israel, while Israel has been increasingly targeting the group’s commanders.
The violence has killed at least 370 people in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters but also at least 70 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
The Israeli military says 10 soldiers and eight civilians have been killed near the northern border.
