The United States government has been divided on how to respond to Iran barrage of rockets fired to Israel.
Reports say while some continue to call for aggressive actions on Iran, others believed that diplomacy is the only way out.
While the Biden administration has consistently called for diplomacy amid the widening conflict, members of the administration were divided over whether Israel should de-escalate or push further, according to Al Jazeera’s diplomatic editor James Bays.
“Some of the comments we’re hearing out of Washington suggest there’s a bit of a division between those that are still calling for restraint” and others, said Bays.
“That’s been Biden’s public line, but he’s not shown any willingness to use any pressure on Israel and ultimately they have that leverage being the country that’s supplying the weapons or the money for the weapons that Israel is using in its bombardments on Gaza and Lebanon.
“Others in the administration are privately saying, ‘let Israel finish the job, let them carry on and degrade Hezbollah, and Hamas.
“And maybe some – this isn’t clear – are saying that Israel should take the next step and use the pretext of what happened 24 hours ago to for a very, very strong attack on Iran.”
Meanwhile, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian said that Tehran “is not looking for war but looking forward to peace and calm”, adding that “Israel is forcing us to react”.
In a joint news conference with Qatar’s emir in Doha, Pezeshkian said that Israel assassinated Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31 and Iran was asked to hold back.
“We were asked to maintain calm. For the sake of peace, we have maintained self-restraint,” he said.
“If Israel acts, we will react more fiercely and harshly. The ominous goals of the Zionist entity are all aimed at destabilising the region. We should work together to steer the region away from all this.”
In the same vein, Hezbollah fighters has ambush Israeli army in Ya’ara.
Reports say the Lebanese group fired a “large salvo” of rockets against a group of Israeli soldiers in the town of Ya’ara in northern Israel.
In other news, the Lebanese group has said that after surveilling Israeli soldiers sheltering in a house outside the Lebanese village of Kfar Kila, its fighters detonated an explosive device in the building and then targeted it with bullets and rocket-propelled grenades.
Hezbollah said all members of the unit were either killed or injured, without specifying the number of casualties.
Source: Aljazeera