Israel to retaliate against Iran, warns David Cameron

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Israel has decided to act in response to Iran’s drone-and-missile attack, the UK’s foreign secretary has said, as he warned that retaliation threatened to escalate hostilities.

As western countries stepped up efforts to dissuade the Jewish state from striking back, Lord David Cameron emerged from meetings in Jerusalem to say the “situation is very concerning”.

“It’s clear the Israelis are making a decision to act,” Cameron told reporters. “We hope they do so in a way that does as little to escalate this as possible.”

The strike by Iran — which involved more than 300 drones and missiles — marked a dramatic escalation of the hostilities that have engulfed the Middle East since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted last year, and has intensified fears that the region is sliding towards a broader conflict.

Iran launched its barrage — the first time the Islamic Republic has targeted the Jewish state directly — in retaliation for a suspected Israeli strike on its consulate in Damascus that killed several senior Iranian commanders. Iran deemed the attack a violation of its “sovereignty”.

An Israeli government official told the Financial Times that Israel’s five-man war cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has taken a decision “in principle” to retaliate against Iran for its weekend barrage. But the timing and scope of such an operation remain unknown.

Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi warned on Wednesday that even “the slightest aggression . . . against our land” by Israel would “result in a severe and intense response”.

Speaking at the annual national day of the country’s conventional army, Raisi said that Iran’s strike had intentionally been “limited” and “calculated”, adding that otherwise, “nothing would have remained of the Zionist regime”. 

Cameron’s visit to Israel coincided with a trip by his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock, and came amid a flurry of diplomatic activity, with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates warning against the consequences of a further intensification of hostilities.

Speaking ahead of the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting in Capri, Baerbock said “no one would be served by a spiral of escalation”, adding that the priority was to prevent “the highly dangerous situation in the Middle East from turning into a regional conflagration”.  

“As the G7 we speak with one voice: all actors in the region are called upon to show maximum restraint,” she said.

Speaking after meeting Cameron and Baerbock, Netanyahu said that Israel reserved the right to take any action in self-defence.

“I thank our friends for their support in the defence of Israel and I say this — both support in words and support in actions,” he said.

“They have all kinds of suggestions and advice, I appreciate it, but I want to make it clear — we will make our own decisions, and the State of Israel will do everything necessary to defend itself.”

Additional reporting by Neri Zilber in Tel Aviv and Guy Chazan in Berlin