“Thanks to an international coordinated effort, which the U.K. participated in, almost all of these missiles were intercepted, saving lives not just in Israel but in neighbouring countries like Jordan as well,” Sunak said in a video posted on X on Sunday.
On Friday, just the day before Iran’s blitz, Gallant and senior military officers huddled with the head of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) at an airbase in Israel to review plans to defend Israel. “We discussed the close cooperation between the United States and Israel, between our defense establishments and our militaries,” Gallant said after the meeting.
Seeking to counter the idea the Iranian attack was an embarrassing failure, officials in Tehran insisted they had been making a calibrated response to the Damascus attack and that their message had been successfully delivered, playing up the damage to the Nevatim base.
Saying the drone and missile barrage had “achieved it goals,” General Mohammad Bagheri, chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces, declared the operation was over “in our opinion.”
Alive to the danger of an Israeli response, however, he insisted: “We are totally ready to defend our land.”
That begs the most important question of how Israel will respond, potentially raising the prospect of a massive conflagration in the region. According to Axios, Biden signaled to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that the U.S. will not join in on any retaliation by Israel for the first-ever direct attack on it by Iran.
