Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have assured the United States that a counterattack on Iran will be limited to military targets rather than oil or nuclear facilities, according to a person familiar with the discussions.
President Joe Biden, who has publicly broadcast his opposition to attacking Tehran’s nuclear and oil facilities, discussed Israel’s plans with Netanyahu during a confidential phone call last week. In that conversation, Netanyahu conveyed to Biden his plan to strike military targets, the person said.
The Washington Post first reported that Netanyahu had reassured Biden about his plans to avoid nuclear and oil targets.
Responding to that report, Netanyahu’s office said it will consider U.S. views but will ultimately decide its response to Iran’s Oct. 1 attack based on its own national interests. And American officials said they were still coordinating closely with Israel as it decides how to respond.
“We listen to the views of the United States, but we will make our final decisions based on our national interests,” Netanyahu’s office wrote on X.
The White House, which has not commented on Netanyahu’s reported message about avoiding nuclear and oil facilities, previously described the phone call between the leaders last week as “productive” and “direct.” It was the first conversation in almost two months.
Israel’s deliberations on how to respond to Iran come at a time of high tensions in the year-old conflict, which has expanded from Gaza to Lebanon. At the White House, officials worked to limit Israel’s retaliation to the ballistic missile barrage, hoping to avoid a wider war.
Still, Biden and other senior officials maintained that Israel has the right to respond and said they were in close coordination with their counterparts as they weighed a decision.
An attack on oil fields that could send energy prices soaring would be undesirable weeks before the U.S. election, officials said. And hitting Iran’s nuclear facilities could trigger the full-blown regional war that Biden has desperately sought to avoid.
American officials said they expected a measured response from Israel, believing the country did not want an out-of-control conflict with Iran. But Biden’s influence with Netanyahu has been limited, even as he has pushed for an end to violence in Gaza and for the containment of a wider war.
This content was originally published in Israel tells the US it plans to target Iranian military installations, says source on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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