G7 leaders are to hold urgent talks after Iran launched an unprecedented attack on Israel.
The call on Sunday comes amid fears of further escalation in the event of a possible Israeli counter-strike.
Tehran has threatened a “heavier” response if Washington co-operates with any further Israeli military action against it.
Israel said Iran launched 170 drones, more than 30 cruise missiles and more than 120 ballistic missiles early on Sunday in an attack that set off air raid sirens across the country.
The assault was launched in response to a strike widely blamed on Israel on an Iranian consular building in Syria earlier this month which killed two Iranian generals.
It marks the first time a direct military assault has been launched by Tehran on Israel despite enmity dating back to the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The development threatens to become a major regional escalation after years of shadow wars fought between the two foes as the war in Gaza inflames decades-old tensions in the Middle East.
The US and UK have offered staunch support for Israel, with the UK’s Ministry of Defence saying RAF warplanes in Iraq and Syria had been deployed to intercept “any airborne attacks within range of our existing missions”.
Israeli military spokesperson rear admiral Daniel Hagari said 99 per cent of more than 300 drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles had been shot down outside the country’s borders, with aircraft intercepting more than 10 cruise missiles.
Rescuers said a seven-year-old girl was seriously wounded in southern Israel, apparently in a strike, although they said police were still investigating the circumstances of her injuries.
Israelis’ reality in the last hours: pic.twitter.com/VXeHM8WqJi
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) April 14, 2024
US president Joe Biden said he would convene the G7 talks “to co-ordinate a united diplomatic response to Iran’s brazen attack”.
Tehran had been threatening to attack since an air strike, which it blamed on Israel, killed two Iranian generals in Syria on April 1st.
Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu has spoken to Mr Biden, who said he had “reaffirmed America’s ironclad commitment to the security of Israel”.
Mr Biden said the US had helped Israel to “take down nearly all” of the drones and missiles.
Mr Netanyahu posted on X: “We intercepted. We repelled. Together we will win.”
But Iran has warned Washington against co-operation with Israel in any military operation, with Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi saying: “Any new adventure against the interests of the Iranian nation would be met with a heavier and regretful response from the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
The state-run IRNA news agency quoted General Mohammad Hossein Bagheri, the chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces, as saying that Tehran had communicated its message to the US through the Swiss embassy, which handles US interest in Iran in the absence of diplomatic relations.
Tehran has largely avoided directly attacking Israel, despite its targeted killings of nuclear scientists and sabotage campaigns on Iran’s atomic sites, instead targeting Israeli or Jewish-linked sites through proxy forces.
But it vowed retaliation for what it said was an Israeli strike on its Damascus consulate on April 1st.
I strongly condemn the serious escalation represented by the large-scale attack launched on Israel by Iran.
I call for an immediate cessation of these hostilities.
Neither the region nor the world can afford another war. https://t.co/Kmbt3zWMw7
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) April 14, 2024
Taoiseach Simon Harris, Tánaiste Micheál Martin, UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres and Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau joined a growing chorus of western leaders urging against escalation.
“I strongly condemn Iran’s reckless and large-scale attack on Israel,” Mr Harris said in a statement.
“I urge all sides to show restraint now and to avoid any escalation in military action and the devastation that would cause.”
Mr Guterres echoed the Taoiseach’s calls, urging “all parties to exercise maximum restraint to avoid any action that could lead to major military confrontations on multiple fronts in the Middle East”.
“I have repeatedly stressed that neither the region nor the world can afford another war” he added.
Signup bonus from
