GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: US President Joe Biden said Tuesday that a ceasefire deal in Gaza could deter Iran from attacking Israel in retaliation for the killing of a Hamas leader that sent regional tensions soaring.
His remarks came after Iran rejected Western calls to “stand down” its threat of reprisals.
The Islamic republic and its allies have blamed Israel for Ismail Haniyeh’s killing on July 31 during a visit to Tehran for the swearing-in of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. Israel has not commented.
Iran has vowed to avenge the death, which came hours after an Israeli strike in Beirut killed a senior commander of Hezbollah, the powerful Iran-backed militant group in Lebanon.
Asked if a truce between Israel and Hamas could stave off an Iranian assault, Biden said: “That’s my expectation.”
He told reporters in New Orleans that while negotiations were “getting hard” he was “not giving up.”
Western diplomats have scrambled to prevent a major conflagration in the Middle East, where tensions were already high due to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
“Ten months since the start of the war, the threat of further regional escalation is more palpable, and chilling, than ever,” said Rosemary DiCarlo, United Nations undersecretary general for political and peacebuilding affairs.
She called on all parties to “end all escalatory rhetoric and actions.”
In a statement on Monday, the United States and its European allies urged Iran to de-escalate.
The White House warned that a “significant set of attacks” by Iran and its allies was possible this week, saying Israel shared the same assessment.
The United States has deployed an aircraft carrier strike group and a guided missile submarine to the region in support of Israel.
On Tuesday, Washington approved weapons sales of more than $20 billion to Israel including F-15 fighter-jets and nearly 33,000 tank cartridges.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani criticized the Western call for restraint.
“The declaration by France, Germany and Britain, which raised no objection to the international crimes of the Zionist regime, brazenly asks Iran to take no deterrent action against a regime which has violated its sovereignty and territorial integrity,” he said in a statement.
The United States and its European allies also called for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, with truce talks to resume on Thursday.
The Gaza war began with Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Militants also seized 251 people, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive in Gaza has killed at least 39,929 people, according to a toll from the territory’s health ministry, which does not provide a breakdown of civilian and militant deaths.
Far-right parties in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition strongly oppose any ceasefire in Gaza, a point rammed home by firebrand National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir on a visit to Jerusalem’s flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
The visit was swiftly condemned by Al-Aqsa’s custodian Jordan, as well as world powers including the United States, the European Union and the United Nations.
Defying longstanding rules that allow Jews and other non-Muslims to visit the compound but not to pray there, Ben Gvir led thousands of Israelis in singing Jewish hymns and performing Talmudic rituals.
In a video filmed inside the compound, Ben Gvir renewed his opposition to any let-up in the Gaza war.
“We must win and not go to the talks in Doha or Cairo,” the minister said, referring to the truce talks planned for Thursday.
US State Department spokesman Vedant Patel nonetheless said Washington remained hopeful that talks would move forward.
Netanyahu has already confirmed Israel’s participation and “our Qatari partners have assured us that they are working to ensure that there is Hamas representation as well,” Patel told reporters.
Hamas has urged mediators to implement a truce plan presented earlier by Biden instead of holding more talks.
Despite more than 10 months of fighting in Gaza, Hamas has still on occasion been able to fire rockets into Israel.
On Tuesday the militants said they had fired two rockets at Tel Aviv in their first attack on the city in months.
The Israeli army said a rocket from Gaza fell into the sea, while another was identified but “did not cross into Israeli territory.”
On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin met Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas in Moscow and told him he was “concerned” about civilian deaths in Gaza.
Putin called for a ceasefire and the “creation of a fully-fledged Palestinian state,” according to images shown on Russian state television.
In the latest Gaza violence, an Israeli strike killed two parents and eight children in Abassan in the southern district of Khan Yunis, a medic from Nasser Hospital told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The sole survivor from the Abu Haya family was a three-month-old girl named Rim, he said.
“This little girl was pulled out of the rubble. Her whole family is dead. Who will take care of her now?” asked Ibrahim Barbakh, a resident of Khan Yunis, as he held the baby.