Israel’s strike on Iran: Crisis shows how badly Iran and Israel understand each other
ReutersIsrael’s attack on Iran was not the fierce response that US President Joe Biden and other western leaders had feared.
They have been urging Israel to draw a line under the dangerous series of events that started with Israel’s assassination of a senior Iranian general in Damascus on 1 April.
More than six months after the Hamas attacks on Israel, war continues in Gaza and has spread to the area either side of the Lebanon-Israel border and to the Gulf.
The fear is that the Middle East is on the brink of an all-out war, with global as well as regional dangers.
The Iranians are playing down the significance of what’s happened in Isfahan.
Initial reports said there had been no attack. Later, an analyst on state TV said air defences had knocked out drones that had been launched by “infiltrators”.
Official media outlets have posted jokey photos of miniature drones.
Israel was responding to the attack last Saturday from Iran. Despite years of enmity and threats it was the first time since the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979 that Iran had launched a direct strike from its territory onto Israel’s.
During that attack Iran launched more than 300 missiles and drones. Almost all of them were destroyed by Israel’s air defences, augmented by forces from the US, UK and Jordan.
The Iranians had made their intentions clear, giving Israel and its allies time to prepare themselves, and quickly issued a statement at the UN in New York that their retaliation was over.
Mr Biden urged Israel to “take the win” but Israel insisted it would hit back.
