President Joe Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday that the United States would not support an Israeli counterattack against Iran.
Biden spoke with Netanyahu on a call after Iran launched dozens of drones and more than 100 ballistic missiles in retaliation for an Israeli strike in Syria that killed a top Iranian general and other military officers. Biden reportedly called a joint defense of Israel a “win,” Axios reports.
Biden reportedly told the prime minister that the U.S. would not participate in nor support an Israeli military response to Iran’s attack. Biden and top White House officials are concerned that escalating military action between Israel and Iran could have significant consequences for the region.
“You got a win. Take the win,” Biden told Netanyahu, according to a White House official who spoke with Axios.
Iran’s attack is the first time it has launched a direct strike on Israel from Iranian soil. Iran proxy militias – such as Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon – have launched repeated, aggressive attacks on Israel for months since October 7 when Hamas invaded Israel, killing roughly 1,200 people and taking hundreds more as hostages. The Houthis in Yemen, another Iranian proxy group, has attacked shipping through the Red Sea in retaliation for Israel’s war against Hamas.
An Israeli airstrike on April 1 killed Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior commander of the elite Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), and his deputy Mohammad Hadi Haji-Rahimi. Five other IRGC officers were killed. The strike hit part of the Iranian embassy complex in Damascus, Syria.
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Iran promised retaliation for the strike, sending the Israeli and U.S. militaries into high alert. The expected Iranian strike came Saturday in a series of drone and missile attacks launched from Iran and by its proxy militias in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq. Most of the attack was thwarted or missed. An air force base in southern Israel was hit slightly, and a seven-year-old child was wounded by shrapnel.
Biden said that the U.S. played a key role in thwarting the attack, saying the U.S. military “helped Israel take down nearly all of the incoming drones and missiles” targeting the Jewish state.
Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s unity government and war cabinet, said that Israel would strike back at Iran.
“We will build a regional coalition and exact the price from Iran in the fashion and timing that is right for us,” Gantz said in a statement, according to Reuters.
