President Biden and Vice President Harris will meet with national security officials in the White House Situation Room on Monday, as Iran reiterates its intention to punish Israel for the apparent assassination of top Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
The meeting will focus on developments in the Middle East, the White House said. Concerns about a wider regional conflict have escalated with the assassination of Haniyeh.
Although Israel has not acknowledged the strike in Iran, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed to seek revenge against Israel after Haniyeh’s death.
Attacks by Iran and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group could come as soon as Monday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told leaders with the Group of Seven on a conference call Sunday, Axios reported, citing three sources briefed on the call.
The call was arranged in a last-minute effort to urge Iran and Hezbollah to limit their attacks as much as possible to prevent an all-out war, Axios added.
G7 members have reached out to Iran to minimize the retaliation for the sake of preventing a regional war, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
A spokesperson for Iran’s foreign ministry told reporters Monday that the Islamic Republic does not want to deepen tensions but has the right, within the framework of international law, to punish Israel, according to Bloomberg.
“Reinforcing stability and security in the region will be achieved by punishing the aggressor and creating deterrence against Israel and its adventurism,” the spokesperson said, per Bloomberg.
Haniyeh’s death followed an already tense week in the region, after Israel killed Fuad Shukr, the top military leader of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon’s capital of Beirut.
Several foreign policy experts suggested last week the consecutive deaths of the militant leaders are sure to escalate already rising tensions, coming just more than three months after Iran directly fired at Israel with hundreds of missiles and drones in an unprecedented attack.
thehill.com/policy/defense/4811372-iran-israel-conflict-haniyeh/
Kamala Harris has been dismissed from the Situation Room 🤡 pic.twitter.com/rSJ2wLSdUE
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Biden, Harris to meet with national security team as US watching for Iranian retaliation
Washington on Monday braced for an expected Iranian retaliation for the killing of a top Hamas leader in Tehran last week, even as deep uncertainty swirled around when Iran would act — and how far it might go.
Multiple US officials across the region and in Washington told CNN that the US expects Iran to retaliate in the coming days – perhaps even within the next 24 hours – against Israel for Ismail Haniyeh’s killing.
But the US has struggled to gauge when the response will come and what form it will take, in part because Iran already moved some of the military assets necessary to carry out a major attack on Israel in April, making it more difficult for US intelligence to predict its actions now, according to two US officials.
Officials are relying on multiple streams of intelligence, and there are divisions among national security officials on how and when Iran’s response might unfold.
The relative uncertainty has left the Biden administration in a defensive crouch as it tries to rally allies and pressure Iran not to escalate tensions.
The killing of Haniyeh – who served as a top Hamas political figure whose job included a role as one of the group’s chief hostage and ceasefire negotiators – along with the killing of Hezbollah leader Fu’ad Shukr in Lebanon last week have thrown the war into its most uncertain phase.
While the bulk of the war has been fought between Israel and Iran’s proxies – Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon – Haniyeh’s assassination on Iranian soil and Iran’s vows of retaliation threateen to throw the conflict into a regional war that could draw in the United States.
Israel claimed credit for Shakr’s killing, which came in response to a rocket strike that killed 12 children in the town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, but has not yet done so for Haniyeh’s killing in Iran.
The extent of the United States’ further involvement in the war largely depends on how exactly Iran responds to Haniyeh’s death. In preparation for possible Iranian retaliation, two US destroyers moved from the Gulf of Oman to the Red Sea in recent days, according to a US official – putting both ships closer to Israel.
The destroyers, the USS Laboon and the USS Cole, are part of a number of assets US Central Command has placed strategically across the region amid fears that Iran could soon launch a major attack on Israel for the second time this year. US destroyers helped shoot down ballistic missiles and drones launched by Iran at Israel in April.
Biden spoke with the Jordanian king Monday morning, where both leaders discussed efforts to “de-escalate regional tensions,” according to a White House readout. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are scheduled to meet with the administration’s national security team in the White House Situation Room later Monday afternoon.
The Jordanian king emphasized the need for de-escalation in the region while also warning of extremist settler violence against Palestinians.
www.cnn.com/2024/08/05/politics/biden-middle-east-israel-gaza-hezbollah-iran/index.html
WATCH LIVE: State Department remarks as Biden is set to hold meeting in Situation Room over Iran threat
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