JERUSALEM: Diplomatic pressure mounted on Monday to stem rising tensions between Iran and Israel that have fueled regional tension after a high-profile assassination.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said late Sunday that his country was determined to stand up against Iran and its allied armed groups “on all fronts.”
As the war against Iran-backed Hamas in Gaza approaches its 11th month, Israel is preparing to retaliate against a Tehran-formed “axis of resistance” for the killing of two senior figures.
Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of the Palestinian armed group Hamas, was blamed for the attack in Tehran on Wednesday, which has not directly commented on Israel.
The killing came hours after an Israeli strike in Beirut killed Fouad Shouk, the military chief of Lebanon's Hezbollah movement.
Tehran said on Monday that “no one has the right to doubt Iran's legal right to punish the Zionist regime for Haniyah's murder”.
US President Joe Biden, whose country has sent additional warships and fighter jets to the region in support of Israel, held crisis talks with his national security team on Monday.
Gen. Michael Kurilla, head of the US military command covering the Middle East, arrived in Israel and met with Israel's army chief, Lt. Gen. Herji Halevy, for a security assessment, an Israeli military statement said.
Iraqi sources said a base hosting US troops in Iraq came under rocket fire on Monday, after four pro-Iranian Iraqi fighters were killed in a US strike on July 30.
“The rockets were launched at the Ain Asad base in Anbar province”, a military source said, while a commander of a pro-Iranian armed group told AFP that at least “two rockets targeted the base”, without saying who had carried out the attack.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on Monday urged all sides in the Middle East to avoid “escalation”, his spokesman said.
US news site Axios earlier reported that Blinken told his counterparts from the G7 nations that Iran and Hezbollah could launch any attack from Monday.
A European diplomat in Tel Aviv said a “coordinated response” from Iran and its proxies was expected but de-escalation efforts were continuing.
“We are telling them that they should stop playing with fire as there is a high risk of fire any time from October 7,” he said, refusing to be named as he was not authorized to speak on the matter.
A meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Jeddah will be held on Wednesday at the request of “Palestine and Iran,” an OIC official said, to discuss developments in the region.
Israeli government spokesman David Menser said his country was “preparing both offensively and defensively for any eventuality.”
In the northern port city of Haifa, shop owner Yehuda Levi, 45, told AFP that Israelis are used to conflict, but facing a multi-pronged attack is “a bit difficult.”
“It is difficult, but we believe that we are a strong country. We will win this war.”
Turkey joined several nations on Monday calling on their citizens to leave Lebanon, where Hezbollah is based.
Many airlines have suspended flights to the country or limited them to daylight hours.
Germany's Lufthansa, which has already suspended flights to the region including Tel Aviv, said its planes would avoid Iraqi and Iranian airspace until at least Wednesday.
Royal Jordanian Airlines said it would operate three flights this week to transport citizens from Beirut.
UN rights chief Volker Türk urged “all parties, including affected states, to take immediate action to de-escalate what has become a very precarious situation”.
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani and his Iraqi counterpart Fuad Hussein agreed in a joint statement on Monday to “make every effort to avoid regional tensions.” Italy currently holds the rotating presidency of the G7 countries.
French President Emmanuel Macron also appealed for “restraint” in the Middle East in talks with the leaders of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, which began with an Oct. 7 attack on Israel by the Palestinian group, has spilled over into Iran-backed fighters in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.
According to AFP figures based on official Israeli figures, Hamas attacks killed 1,197 people, most of them civilians.
The militants also captured 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still being held in Gaza, killing 39.
Thousands of Israelis gathered in Tel Aviv on Monday to celebrate the fifth birthday of child captive Ariel Bibas and call for his and his family's release.
Netanyahu has repeatedly promised to bring the hostages home but faces a growing chorus of skeptics who worry he is not interested in a ceasefire and hostage-release deal with Hamas, which US, Egyptian and Qatari mediators have been trying to reach for months.
“The hostages don't have time and it seems that some people in Israel, including the prime minister, are taking their time,” said Gil Dickman, whose nephew Carmel Gat is among the hostages.
Israel's retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,623 people, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry, which does not detail civilian and militant deaths.
As the region prepared for further expansion, Hezbollah and Israel continued their almost daily exchanges.
Lebanon's health ministry said three people were killed Monday in an Israeli attack in the south of the country. Israel's military said it attacked militants operating drones in the Mis al-Jabal area.
Hezbollah later said two militants were killed, one from Mais al-Jabal.
Tehran expects Hezbollah to strike deep inside Israel and no longer be limited to military targets.
Far from the Lebanese border, Israeli forces fired about 15 rockets into Israel from the southern Gaza Strip on Monday, medics said.
