Washington/Beirut: A senior US official said on Sunday the United States is ready for “every possibility” , while telling the Israelis it is “urgent” to reach a ceasefire deal in Gaza.
Following the Pentagon’s announcement that it has beefed up the US military presence in the Middle East, White House Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer said “we are preparing for every possibility.”
“The Pentagon is moving significant assets to the region, to prepare for what may be another need to defend Israel from an attack, while simultaneously we are working very hard to deescalate this situation diplomatically because we do not believe that a regional war is in anyone’s interest in the current moment,” he continued, speaking on ABC News.
The US has mobilised more warships and fighter jets to protect its troops and ally Israel from threats by Iran and militant groups backed by Tehran, such as Palestinian Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah.
France’s Emmanuel Macron and Jordan’s King Abdullah II on Sunday said a military escalation in the Middle East must be avoided “at all costs” during a telephone call, the French presidency said.
The leaders “expressed their utmost concern” and “underlined the need to avoid a regional military escalation at all costs”, according to a readout of their call.
Jordan FM holds talks in Iran
In Tehran, Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi held rare talks with officials in Iran.
ISNA news agency said Safadi “met and held consultations with” acting foreign minister Ali Bagheri after landing in Tehran for a rare visit.
Earlier the official news agency IRNA said that Safadi would “exchange views with Iranian officials on regional and international issues” during his visit to Tehran, and would be meeting Bagheri.
The Jordanian foreign ministry said Safadi would deliver a message from King Abdullah II to the Iranian president on “the situation in the region and bilateral relations”.
Iran has held talks with multiple Arab countries including Jordan, Egypt, Oman and Qatar among others since Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh’s killing.
Tehran repeatedly reaffirmed its “inherent right” to take action against Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says his country is at “a very high level” of preparedness for any scenario - “defensive and offensive”.
Haniyeh’s killing came hours after Israel killed a senior commander of the Lebanese Tehran-backed Hezbollah militant group, Fuad Shukr, which Israel blamed for a deadly weekend rocket strike on the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have said Haniyeh was killed by a “short-range projectile” launched from outside his accommodation in northern Tehran.
Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari had earlier told journalists “there was no other Israeli aerial attack... in all the Middle East” on the night Shukr was killed in Lebanon.
The dual killings are the latest of several major incidents that have inflamed regional tensions during the Gaza war, which has drawn in Iran-backed militant groups in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.
Urgent calls
Meanwhile, urgent calls for foreign nationals to leave Lebanon grew on Sunday with France warning of “a highly volatile” situation as Iran and its allies ready their response to high-profile killings blamed on Israel.
Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, which has traded near-daily fire with Israeli forces since the Gaza war broke out in October, announced its fighters had fired a barrage of rockets at Israel’s north overnight.
The Israeli military said 30 projectiles were launched from Lebanon, with most of them intercepted.
Saudi Arabia, France, Canada and Jordan were among the latest governments to call for their citizens to leave Lebanon.
“In a highly volatile security context”, French nationals were “urgently asked” to avoid travelling to Lebanon, and those already in the country “to make their arrangements now to leave... as soon as possible”, the foreign ministry in Paris said.
50 targets struck
The United States and Britain have issued similar warnings.
France on Sunday also urged its nationals living in Iran to “temporarily leave”, warning Iranian airspace and airports could close.
Several Western airlines have suspended flights to Lebanon and other airports in the region.
On Sunday Qatar Airways said the Doha-Beirut route would “operate exclusively during daylight hours” at least until Monday.
The Israeli military said its air forces had struck “approximately 50 terror targets throughout the Gaza Strip” in the past 24 hours.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said eight bodies had been recovered from a residential building in north Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp after an Israeli air strike.
Medics at central Gaza’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital said at least five people were killed and 16 wounded in an Israeli drone strike on tents housing displaced Palestinians at the medical complex, with a separate attack on a house nearby in the same area killing three.
On Saturday, an Israeli strike on a school turned displacement shelter killed at least 17 people, the civil defence agency said. Israel said the facility was used by militants.
War ‘without constraints’
Haniyeh’s killing “has brought the Middle East to its moment of greatest peril in years”, the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank said in a report issued on Saturday.
The potential for a miscalculation that would trigger a war “without constraints... is likely greater now than it was in April”, it added.
On April 13, Iran fired a barrage of drones and missiles at Israel - most of which were intercepted - after a deadly strike on Tehran’s consulate in Damascus.
The ICG said that securing “a long overdue ceasefire” in Gaza was “the best way of meaningfully reducing tensions in the region”.
Hamas officials but also some analysts as well as protesters in Israel have accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of prolonging the war to safeguard his ruling hard-right coalition.
On Sunday, Netanyahu told his cabinet he was “making every effort” to return the hostages and was prepared “to go a long way” to do so.
