Biden-Netanyahu Phone Call To Focus On Iran Strike As Israel Weighs Military Options

NEW YORK (VINnews) — President Biden is expected to hold a crucial phone call on Wednesday morning with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about Israel’s plans to strike Iran, three U.S. officials told Axios.

The call comes after Netanyahu cancelled Defense Minister Gallant’s planned visit to Washington, and as Israel is still deliberating over the scope and timing of its proposed attack on Iran in retaliation for last week’s missile strikes on Israel. The attack is expected to be significant, and will likely include a combination of airstrikes on military targets in Iran and clandestine attacks like the one the killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. However the US wants to make sure Israel attacks targets in Iran that are significant without being disproportionate, thus plunging the region into a protracted war.

Biden as well as other world leaders have advised against escalations involving Iran’s oil and nuclear infrastructure.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the Biden administration is frustrated that the Israeli government has refused as yet to tell it anything about its planned retaliation to the attack, adding details from a previous time that this recently happened.

Citing unnamed US officials, the American news site stated that after Jerusalem surprised Washington by assassinating Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah late last month without coordination with the White House, UsaysS Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was blunt in a subsequent phone call with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

“Excuse me, what did you say?” Austin reportedly asked Gallant when the latter told him about the operation.

Later that day, during a second phone call between the two, Austin asked Gallant if Jerusalem was ready to defend itself on its own, since the US hadn’t had time to deploy its forces to deflect a potential immediate reprisal by Hezbollah, according to the report.