Middle East crisis live: US does not back strike on Iran nuclear sites; Iran ‘not looking for war’ | Iran

The UN has decried the Israeli government’s decision to ban its secretary general, António Guterres, from entering the country.

Earlier today, Israel’s foreign minister Israel Katz declared the UN chief persona non grata and accused him of being an “anti-Israel secretary-general who lends support to terrorists”.

UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric later told reporters that Katz’s declaration was “one more attack on the United Nations staff that we’ve seen from the government of Israel”.

Dujarric said that the UN chief has repeatedly condemned the Hamas attacks and sexual violence, and stressed that the UN still engages with Israel “at the operational level and other levels”.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned the head of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, to flee Lebanon days before he was killed in an Israeli strike last week, according to a report.

In the immediate aftermath of the attack that targeted pagers used by Hezbollah members on 17 September, Khamenei sent a message with an envoy to beseech Nasrallah to leave Lebanon for Iran, a senior Iranian official has told Reuters.

Khamenei, in his message to Nasrallah, cited intelligence that suggested Israel had operatives within Hezbollah and was planning to kill him, the source said.

According to the source, the messenger was a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander, Brig Gen Abbas Nilforoushan, who was with Nasrallah in his bunker when it was hit by Israeli bombs and was also killed.

Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, has said that Doha will continue mediation efforts to end the war in Gaza amid a heightening of regional tensions.

The Qatari emir, at a joint press conference on Wednesday with Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said Doha had warned of escalation in Lebanon since the beginning of the war in Gaza.

Pezeshkian insisted that Iran is “not looking for war” but pledged a stronger response if Israel retaliates for its missile attack. He told reporters:

If [Israel] wants to react, we will have a stronger response, this is what the Islamic Republic is committed to. We are not looking for war, it is Israel that forces us to react.

The US state department said it organised a flight from Beirut to Istanbul on Wednesday to allow Americans to leave Lebanon.

About 7,000 US citizens in Lebanon had registered with the US government to receive information about leaving the country, US state department spokesperson Matthew Miller said at a briefing.

The flight on Wednesday had a capacity of about 300 and carried about 100 Americans and their family members, he said.

The US hopes to organise more flights in the coming days, he added.

Iran’s ambassador to the UN, Amir Saied Iravani, said Tuesday’s missile attacks against Israel were a “proportionate response to Israel’s continued terrorist aggressive acts over the past two months” that was “necessary to restore balance and deterrence”.

The strikes on Tuesday were in full accordance with Tehran’s “inherent right to self-defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter and a direct response to the regime’s repeated acts of aggression against Iran, including the violation of Iran’s sovereignty and territorial integrity during the past months”, the UN reported him saying.

“Experience has proven that Israel only understands the language of force,” he told the council, adding that “diplomacy has repeatedly failed as Israel views restraint not as a gesture of goodwill, but as a weakness to exploit”. He added:

Iran is fully prepared to take further defensive measures, if necessary, to protect its legitimate interests and defend its territorial integrity and sovereignty against any acts of military aggression and the illegal use of force.

He further condemned the “US regime” for their aim to “embolden Israel’s criminal actions” through their military support and political backing, thereby paralysing the security council from effective decision-making, and called on the council to act.

Hamas’s armed wing, the al-Qassam brigades, has claimed responsibility for a shooting and knife attack in Tel Aviv on Tuesday that killed at least seven people.

Several others were injured when a gunman opened fire at members of the public in the Jaffa area of the Israeli capital.

Local police said the attack began in a rail carriage and continued on the platform. The gunman and another attacker armed with a knife were “neutralised” by members of the public, it said.

In a statement on Wednesday, the al-Qassam brigades said it took responsibility for the operation.

Joe Biden, the US president, has said he does not support an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites as Israel vowed to respond to Iran’s missile attack on Tuesday.

“The answer is no,” he said in response to the question.

We’ll be discussing with the Israelis what they’re going to do, but all seven of us [G7 nations] agree that they have a right to respond but they should respond proportionally.

Biden also told reporters that there would be more sanctions imposed on Iran and said he would speak “relatively soon” with the Israeli leader, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Here’s the clip:

Joe Biden joined a call with G7 leaders on Wednesday to coordinate a response to Iran’s attack on Israel, according to the White House.

In a readout of the call, the White House said Biden joined the call with the G7 to discuss the Iranian attack and “to coordinate on a response to this attack, including new sanctions”. It added:

President Biden and the G7 unequivocally condemned Iran’s attack against Israel.

Biden expressed the US’s “full solidarity and support” to Israel and reaffirmed his country’s “ironclad commitment to Israel’s security”, the statement continued.

Here’s a recap of the latest developments:

• Israel will respond to Iran’s missile attack and its forces can strike anywhere in the Middle East, its military chief said. “We have the capability to reach and strike every location in the Middle East and those of our enemies who have not yet understood this, will understand this soon,” Herzi Halevi, chief of the general staff, said in a video on Wednesday. “Iran made a big mistake tonight – and it will pay for it,” Benjamin Netanyahu told a meeting of his security cabinet late on Tuesday. Israel’s foreign minister Israel Katz threatened Israeli retaliation for Iran’s “brutal” missile attack.

• Iran is bracing itself for likely Israeli attacks on its nuclear sites as the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, urged the west to leave the Middle East. The unprecedented Iranian salvo of more than 180 ballistic missiles came less than 24 hours after the Israeli prime minister Netanyahu ordered the largest ground incursion into southern Lebanon in a generation.

• Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, made a round of diplomatic calls, insisting that Iran was not seeking escalation. Unlike Israeli attacks in Lebanon, Iran’s targets had been strictly military and not civilian, he claimed. Part of the purpose of Araghchi’s calls was to convey the limits of the Iranian operation, and to urge the US and Europe to insist in turn that Israel show restraint in its response. At a meeting of the UN security council in New York later on Wednesday Iran is expected to defend its actions in line with the UN Charter.

• The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced that seven more of its soldiers have been killed in a series of clashes with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon on Wednesday. The commandos were all killed during a gun battle with Hezbollah operatives in a southern Lebanon village, according to a report. The deaths mark the first significant casualties taken by the IDF since Israel launched its ground incursion into Lebanon earlier this week. Earlier, the IDF said another soldier had died during the campaign, bringing the total death toll to eight.

• The IDF claimed to have destroyed “over 150 terror infrastructures” which it said included “Hezbollah headquarters, weapons storage facilities and rocket launchers” inside Lebanon. Israel’s military also reported a continued barrage of projectiles fired into the country from Lebanon.

• Three people have been killed in an Israeli airstrike on a neighbourhood in western Damascus on Wednesday, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The strike was the second in as many days on the Mezzah suburb in the western part of the Syrian capital. Wednesday’s strike hit about 500 metres from Tuesday’s strike.

• Israeli media reported that Israel’s military said Iran did succeed in striking Israeli airbases with missiles during yesterday’s attack, but the attack was “ineffective”. No aircraft were damaged and the Israeli air force (IAF) was able to continue to operate, it said. Impacts were said to have damaged office buildings and other maintenance areas.

• António Guterres, the UN secretary-general, on Wednesday condemned Iran’s missile attack on Israel, telling the security council the “deadly cycle of tit-for-tat violence must stop”. “Time is running out,” he told the council. Earlier on Wednesday, Israel’s foreign minister said he was barring Guterres from entering the country because he had not “unequivocally” condemned Iran’s missile attack on Israel.

• The US will focus its engagements with the Israelis to try to align its perspectives on any potential response to the Iranian attack on Israel, the US deputy secretary of state, Kurt Campbell, said on Wednesday. He said the Middle East region was at “a moment of peril” and “on a knife’s edge”.

• John Healey, the UK defence secretary, said two RAF Typhoon jets were in the air “ready to engage” in the Middle East on Tuesday night as Iran launched a ballistic missile attack on Israel, but they had no suitable targets to hit. In a carefully worded statement on Tuesday night, Healy suggested British forces were involved in thwarting Iran’s missile attack against Israel. He also said he had spoken to his Israeli opposite number, Yoav Gallant, on Wednesday morning and had assured him “we totally condemn the Iranian missile attacks overnight, and we will stand steadfast with Israel in their right to security”.

• Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip killed at least 60 Palestinians overnight, including in a school sheltering displaced families, medics in the territory said. Gaza’s health ministry said Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed at least 41,689 Palestinians and wounded 96,625 since 7 October.

• The UK’s foreign secretary, David Lammy, said on Wednesday the first charter flight taking British nationals out of Lebanon has departed. “We have arranged another flight for tomorrow, and further flights over the coming days for as long as there is demand and it is safe to do so,” he said, adding that British nationals still in Lebanon should register with the Foreign Office and leave the country immediately.

• French nationals in Iran have been recommended to leave temporarily once international air traffic resumes. The French embassy in Iran said French citizens who are permanent citizens in the country or visiting Iran should leave immediately. Germany’s foreign ministry also urged its citizens to leave Iran.

• Slovakia is preparing to evacuate its nationals from Lebanon, and has received permission from the Lebanese government to use a military plane for the purpose. China’s state-owned news agency Xinhua reported that over 200 Chinese nationals have been evacuated from Lebanon.

• Bosnia said it had raised its security alert level for weapons and ammunition storage facilities over concerns that the escalating conflict in the Middle East could affect the Balkan country’s stability. Defence minister Zukan Helez said measures were preventive and “the security situation in our country is stable and there is no information or indication that it will be disturbed”.

• Three men have been arrested on suspicion of involvement in two explosions near the Israeli embassy in Copenhagen in the early hours of Wednesday morning.