Middle East crisis: Israel says Iran won’t get off ‘scot-free’ after missile attack – as it happened

Here’s a recap of the latest developments:

• The Israeli army said Iran will not get off “scot-free” after Tehran’s missile and drone attack over the weekend. “We will respond in our time, in our place, in the way that we will choose,” Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Daniel Hagari told reporters on Tuesday. On Monday, the Israeli military chief, Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, said Israel was considering its next steps but that the Iranian strike “will be met with a response”.

• The US and the EU are considering rapid new sanctions against Iran in the wake of Tehran’s large-scale air attack on Israel at the weekend. The US treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, said Washington would use its sanctions authority and work with allies to “continue disrupting the Iranian regime’s malign and destabilising activity”. Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, noted a European appetite for quickly expanding sanctions against Tehran, perhaps within days.

• The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it has killed a Hezbollah commander in an airstrike in the southern Lebanese town of Ain Baal. The individual was named as Ismail Yousef Baz, who was described as “a senior and veteran official in the military wing of Hezbollah”. A source close to Hezbollah said the “field commander in charge of the Naqura region” was killed in an Israeli strike.

• Vladimir Putin urged all sides in the Middle East to refrain from action that would trigger a new confrontation which he warned would be fraught with catastrophic consequences for the region, the Kremlin said. Putin spoke to Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, by phone about what the Kremlin called “retaliatory measures taken by Tehran”.

• Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly avoiding a call from the UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, after the pair were scheduled to speak on Monday, according to a report. Sunak, addressing the House of Commons on Monday, said he would “shortly be speaking to prime minister Netanyahu” to “discuss how we can prevent further escalation” in the face of the weekend’s attack by Iran.

• The Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus violated international law, a group of independent experts appointed by the UN human rights council said. In the report, special rapporteurs and independent experts said “retaliatory military attacks between Israel and Iran violate the right to life and must cease immediately.”

• At least 33,843 Palestinians and 76,575 wounded in the Gaza Strip since 7 October, according to the latest figures by the territory’s health ministry on Tuesday. The ministry, which is led by Hamas, stated there had been 46 Palestinians killed and 110 injured in the past 24 hours.

• Israeli tanks pushed back into some areas of the northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday which they had left weeks ago, while warplanes conducted airstrikes on Rafah, the Palestinians’ last refuge in the south of the territory, killing and wounding several people, medics and residents said.

• More than 10,000 women have been killed in Gaza since Israel’s war with Hamas began in October, according to a new report by UN Women. Among those women killed in the Palestinian territory are an estimated 6,000 mothers, leaving 19,000 children orphaned, the report published on Tuesday said.

• The UN has voiced grave concern over escalating violence in the West Bank, demanding that Israeli security forces “immediately” stop supporting settler attacks on Palestinians in the occupied territory. The statement was issued after two Palestinian men were killed by Israeli settlers in a northern village south of Nablus, in the latest violent attack involving settlers in the increasingly tense West Bank.

• More than a dozen humanitarian groups have signed a letter warning that the escalating tensions in the Middle East are “unprecedented” and risk “threatening the lives of millions of civilians”.

• The artists and curators of the Israeli national pavilion at the Venice Biennale have announced their decision not to open until “a ceasefire and hostage release agreement is reached” in the conflict in Gaza, on the opening preview day of the largest and most prominent global gathering in the art world.

Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly avoiding a call from the UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, after the pair were scheduled to speak on Monday, according to a report by Israel’s Kann public broadcaster.

The Israeli prime minister’s office denied the report, but it did not say whether the two leaders have spoken yet.

Sunak, addressing the House of Commons yesterday, said he would “shortly be speaking to prime minister Netanyahu” to “discuss how we can prevent further escalation” in the face of the weekend’s attack by Iran.

Sunak has been seeking to speak to the Israeli leader for more than 36 hours, the Telegraph reported.

The US has made it clear to Israel that its war against Hamas should not escalate after Iran’s strikes, US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said.

It has a greater impact on the region,” Thomas-Greenfield told MSNBC on Tuesday.

But again, I have to say that Israel, Israel’s war cabinet will make the decision about what Israel will do.

Israel will continue to receive the White House’s support “should they experience the kind of attack that they just experienced from Iran over the weekend,” she added.

Here’s some more information on the Israeli report that an Israeli strike inside Lebanon today killed “a senior Hezbollah field commander”.

A source close to Hezbollah has told AFP that the “field commander in charge of the Naqura region” was killed in an Israeli strike in south Lebanon.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has named the individual as Ismail Yousef Baz, who it described as “a senior and veteran official in the military wing of Hezbollah”, adding:

As part of his position, he was involved in advancing and planning rocket and anti-tank missile launches towards the State of Israel from the coastal area in Lebanon.

More than 10,000 women have been killed in Gaza since Israel’s war with Hamas began in October, according to a new report by UN Women.

Among those women killed in the Palestinian territory are an estimated 6,000 mothers, leaving 19,000 children orphaned, the report published on Tuesday says.

Women who have survived have been “displaced, widowed, and are facing starvation”, it says, adding that more than a million women and girls have “almost no food, no access to safe water, latrines, washrooms, or sanitary pads, with disease growing amidst inhumane living conditions.”

One child is injured or dies every 10 minutes, it added.

16 Apr 202410.51 EDT

Peter Beaumont

One potential target for expanded US and EU sanctions, officials have suggested, was widening the scope of those involved in Iran’s production of drones, which were used in this weekend’s attack and have also been widely used against Ukraine by Russia.

On Monday the Israeli military chief, Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, said that Israel was considering its next steps but that the Iranian strike “will be met with a response”, while the army’s spokesperson, Rear Adm Daniel Hagari, said Israel would respond “at the time that we choose”.

Israeli analysts have suggested, however, that the longer Israel’s delay in responding, the less significant it was likely to be.

16 Apr 202410.44 EDT

Peter Beaumont

The US and the EU are considering rapid new sanctions against Iran in the wake of Tehran’s large-scale air attack on Israel at the weekend.

In prepared remarks on Tuesday, the US treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, said Washington would use its sanctions authority and work with allies to “continue disrupting the Iranian regime’s malign and destabilising activity”.

Yellen’s comments were echoed by the German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, who announced she was travelling to Israel for discussions on how to prevent an escalation of tensions in the region. Baerbock said she had noted a European appetite for quickly expanding sanctions against Tehran, perhaps within days.

With senior Israeli officials promising a response to the Iranian airstrikes, governments – including that of Germany – who are keen to avoid a dangerous escalation have increasingly talked up new international sanctions.

More than a dozen humanitarian groups have signed a letter warning that the escalating tensions in the Middle East are “unprecedented” and risk “threatening the lives of millions of civilians”.

All efforts should be made to ensure de-escalation through political and diplomatic means “to avoid the security situation spiraling out of control”, the 13 non-governmental organisations (NGOs), which include International Rescue Committee (IRC), Save The Children and Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), urged on Tuesday.

They said they were “deeply concerned” about the prospect of further regional escalation, that would have a “catastrophic” impact for a region where “millions are already affected by existing crises due to conflict, displacement, poverty and climate change.”

The letter continues:

Drawing on our extensive collective experience in the region, we understand that crises in the Middle East often have far-reaching consequences beyond its borders. A regional conflict would likely result in significant global ramifications, including forced displacement and migration, disruptions to global supply chains and impacts on energy supplies.

The Israeli army said Iran will not get off “scot-free” after Tehran’s missile and drone attack over the weekend.

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Daniel Hagari, speaking to reporters at Julis military base on Tuesday, said:

We cannot stand still from this kind of aggression, Iran will not get [off] scot-free with this aggression.

He added:

We will respond in our time, in our place, in the way that we will choose.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) said there has been “no significant change” in the amount of humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip,

In its latest situational update published today, Unrwa said an average of 181 aid trucks have crossed into Gaza per day through land crossings from Israel and Egypt so far in April, adding:

This remains well below the operational capacity of both border crossings and the target of 500 trucks per day.

Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, told reporters last week that Israel planned to “flood Gaza with aid” and increase deliveries to 500 truckloads per day.

View image in fullscreen

16 Apr 202410.01 EDT

Peter Beaumont

The United Nations has voiced grave concern over escalating violence in the West Bank, demanding that Israeli security forces “immediately” stop supporting settler attacks on Palestinians in the occupied territory, reports Peter Beaumont.

The statement from the UN’s human rights office was issued hours after two Palestinian men were killed by Israeli settlers in a northern village south of Nablus, in the latest violent attack involving settlers in the increasingly tense West Bank.

Palestinians said the incident followed a clash when settlers entered Palestinian-owned land and assaulted residents, while settlers said it began with an assault on a Jewish person.

Tensions in the West Bank have escalated sharply since the killing of a 14-year-old boy from a settler family at the weekend.

Monday’s violence brought to eight the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces or armed settlers since Friday, as Palestinian authorities reported increased settler rampages across the West Bank. Palestinian eyewitnesses and video suggested that Israeli security forces had been present, standing by at some of the incidents.

Salah Bani Jaber, the mayor of Aqraba, a town near the northern city of Nablus, witnessed Monday’s settler attack. He said about 50 settlers, many of them armed, attacked members of his community and fired at Palestinian youths, killing two of them and wounding others.

“There were Israeli soldiers at the scene who stood idly by watching the settlers,” he said.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said soldiers blocked its ambulances from reaching the area and tending to the wounded. The Israeli military said it was looking into the incident.

Vladimir Putin urged all sides in the Middle East to refrain from action that would trigger a new confrontation which he warned would be fraught with catastrophic consequences for the region, the Kremlin said.

Putin, who has forged close ties with Iran since sending troops into Ukraine in 2022, spoke to its president, Ebrahim Raisi, by phone about what the Kremlin called “retaliatory measures taken by Iran. Putin, in his first publicly aired comments on Iran’s attack, said that the root cause of the current instability in the Middle East was the unresolved conflict between Palestinians and Israel.

“Ebrahim Raisi noted that Iran’s actions were forced and limited in nature,” the Kremlin said. “At the same time, he stressed Tehran’s disinterest in further escalation of tensions.

“Both sides stated that the root cause of the current events in the Middle East is the unresolved Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In this regard, the principled approaches of Russia and Iran in favour of an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, easing the difficult humanitarian situation, and creating conditions for a political and diplomatic settlement of the crisis were confirmed.”

Israeli tanks pushed back into some areas of the northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday which they had left weeks ago, while warplanes conducted air strikes on Rafah, the Palestinians’ last refuge in the south of the territory, killing and wounding several people, medics and residents said.

Reuters reports that residents said there had been an internet outage in the areas of Beit Hanoun and Jabalia in northern Gaza. Tanks advanced into Beit Hanoun and surrounded some schools where displaced families have taken refuge, said the residents and media outlets of the militant Palestinian group Hamas.

“Occupation soldiers ordered all families inside the schools and the nearby houses where the tanks had advanced to evacuate. The soldiers detained many men,” one resident of northern Gaza told Reuters via a chat app.

Beit Hanoun, home to 60,000 people, was one of the first areas targeted by Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza last October. Many families who had returned to Beit Hanoun and Jabalia in recent weeks after Israeli forces withdrew, began moving out again on Tuesday because of the new raid, some residents said.

Palestinian health officials said in one strike, Israel killed four people and wounded several others in Rafah, where over half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are sheltering and bracing for a planned Israeli ground offensive into the city, which borders Egypt.

The Israeli military said its forces continued to operate in the central Gaza Strip and that they had killed several gunmen who attempted to attack them. “Furthermore, over the past day, IDF fighter jets and aircraft destroyed a missile launcher along with dozens of terrorist infrastructure, terror tunnels, and military compounds where armed Hamas terrorists were located,” it added.

In Al-Nusseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, residents said Israeli planes had bombed and destroyed four multi-storey residential buildings on Tuesday.

Zeina Khodr, a senior correspondent at Al Jazeera English television, has posted to social media to report that Israel’s army radio has claimed the target of a strike inside Lebanon by Israel’s military in the last hour or so was “a senior Hezbollah field commander”.

The strike appears to have come as a rapid retaliation for a drone strike inside Israel which Hezbollah has claimed, saying it was targeting missile defence systems. Three Israelis are reported wounded in that incident today.

Yesterday Israel’s military said four Israeli soldiers were wounded by an explosion when they were operating inside Lebanon. Hezbollah claimed it set off the explosion.

The state-owned RIA news agency in Russia has posted to its Telegram channel a read-out via the Kremlin of a call between Russia’s president Vladimir Putin and his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi.

It reported:

Putin and Raisi discussed the situation in the Middle East in a telephone conversation after Israel’s attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus and Tehran’s retaliatory measures, the Kremlin said.

Putin expressed the hope that all parties will show reasonable restraint and not allow a new round of confrontation.

The Iranian president noted that Iran’s actions were forced and limited in nature, and emphasised his disinterest in further escalation.