US warns Israel: we won't support attacks on Iranian nuclear sites

Washington in urgent talks to contain rapidly escalating conflict

- Peter Beaumont

Joe Biden said yesterday that he would not support Israeli attacks on Iranian nuclear sites, as the US sought to temper Israel's response to Iran's missile attack in an effort to contain an escalating regional conflict.

The US president's comments came after the top Israeli diplomat at the UN warned his country's retaliation for an Iranian salvo of nearly 200 ballistic missiles on Tuesday would be heavier than Tehran "could ever have imagined".

On the same day, the Israeli chief of staff, Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, warned: "We have the capabilities to reach and strike any point in the Middle East", a reality that Israel's enemies would "soon understand".

There is general acceptance in Washington that Israel will carry out a military response that is almost certain to go further than its only previous airstrikes against Iran, when missiles were fired at an air defence installation near Isfahan after an Iranian aerial attack in April.

But the Biden administration fears that a major Israeli response, particularly one targeting Iran's nuclear facilities, could trigger further escalation that could ultimately draw in US forces, and potentially an Iranian decision to try to build nuclear weapons.

Almost all the Iranian missiles on Tuesday were intercepted by Israel's layered air defences, and the sole fatality was a Palestinian killed by falling debris on the West Bank.

An unspecified number of the missiles, however, landed on or near Israeli airbases at Nevatim and Tel Nof, damaging office buildings and other maintenance areas, though not aircraft or personnel.

Washington first raised the alarm a few hours before Iran's missile launch on Tuesday night, and since then US officials have been locked in urgent talks with their Israeli counterparts on their country's response.