Jeremy Bowen
International editor, reporting from Jerusalem

Israeli strikes were expected. Since Iran’s October 1st ballistic missile attack, Israel has said they are coming. The question now is whether Iran will respond.

President Biden had told Israel not to strike Iran’s nuclear, oil and gas facilities. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu followed his advice on this occasion.

The Americans hope that only attacking military targets could persuade Iran not to launch another round of strikes on Israel.

It is hard to stop successive rounds of strikes and counterstrikes when the countries concerned believe they will be seen as weak and discouraged if they do not respond. This is how wars escalate and get worse.

On October 1, Iran was retaliating after Israel’s attacks on its allies – especially Hezbollah in Lebanon. Now Israel says it is responding to months of continued attacks from Iran — not just ballistic missiles, but also from Iran’s allies and proxies.

Israel is also waging a major offensive in northern Gaza. UN human rights chief Volker Turk called it the darkest moment of the war in Gaza – with the Israeli army subjecting an entire population to bombing, siege and the risk of starvation.

It is impossible for an outsider to know whether the timing of Israel’s attacks on Iran was designed to draw international attention away from northern Gaza. But that may have been part of the calculation.