[🇮🇷] Iran launched ballistic missiles towards Israel

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[Ghazi52]

Like a wise man once said "there was no difference between the liberal jew & the Zionist jew the liberal jew just thought Zionism was an impractical maybe even dangerous way of publicly avowing their Jewishness"

 

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Power balance has shifted as region braces for Israel's response to Iran, analyst says​

From CNN’s Kathleen Magramo

A firefighter stands in front of an apartment hit by an Israeli airstrike, in Beirut, Lebanon, on October 3, 2024.
Hussein Malla/AP

Devastating Israeli strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon have given Israel the upper hand as it edges toward a direct confrontation with the militant group’s backers in Iran, a regional expert said on Thursday.

After killing Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and launching a ground incursion in southern Lebanon, Israel was likely to target Iran directly in response to Tuesday’s Iranian missile attack, said Paul Salem, vice president for international engagement at the Washington-based Middle East Institute.

“We are bracing for a large-scale Israeli attack on Iran,” Salem told CNN’s Lynda Kinkade.

Israel’s assassination of Nasrallah and multiple heavy hits to Hezbollah over the past two weeks signaled a “tectonic shift” in regional power dynamics, he added.

“Before Israel decapitated Hezbollah and greatly degraded it, Israel used to worry about Hezbollah much more when it contemplated hitting Iran,” Salem said.

“Now, they feel Hezbollah is not a major threat and now Israel is focused on going after Iran itself. And that tectonic shift is a shift in which Iran no longer has the balance of power or balance of deterrence between Iran and Israel.”

 

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US ability to control Netanyahu's military strategy “pretty limited,” CNN analyst says​

From CNN’s Kathleen Magramo

The White House’s ability to control Israel’s military strategy is “quite limited,” a CNN security analyst told CNN, as US officials call for a de-escalation in Israel’s growing conflict with Iran, and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Juliette Kayyem, a national security, intelligence and terrorism analyst, told CNN’s Lynda Kinkade it is difficult to predict Israel’s response at this stage, saying the United States’ influence over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s military strategy had lessened since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7.

The United States is Israel’s most important ally and biggest supplier of arms. But its “ability to control Israel in terms of its military strategy is showing itself to be quite limited,” Kayyem said.

Israel’s continuing attacks in Gaza show that concerns from the US on hindrances to humanitarian aid have gone unheeded by Israeli authorities, she added.

Asked whether Israel would listen to US President Joe Biden’s message that Iranian nuclear sites should not be targeted, Kayyem noted that Israel has vowed to launch a “very public and forceful” response to Iran’s major missile attack and is “keeping its options open.”

“It’s not like there aren’t enough potential targets. It won’t just be nuclear,” Kayyem said. “You could go after oil fields, you could go after their missile sites, but Israel is keeping its options open — one hopes, to avoid a regional, direct conflict between Iran and Israel. The consequences of that [are] just unknowable to anyone at this stage.”

 

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Biden rejects suggestion of imminent Israeli strike on Iran​

Image source,EPA/Shutterstock
The US president shared the update with reporters at the White House today
US President Joe Biden has dismissed suggestions of an Israeli strike on Iran being launched today.

Asked by reporters at the White House if the US would allow Israel to respond to Tuesday's attacks from Iran, Biden said: "First of all, we don't 'allow' Israel, we advise Israel. And there is nothing going to happen today."

Following the large-scale missile attacks launched by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Iran will pay for the "big mistake".