The White House said Thursday it had “warned” Iran after President Joe Biden said Tehran was threatening a significant retaliatory attack on Israel over a strike that destroyed an Iranian consulate building in Damascus. The announcement came as the UN Security Council acknowledged Israel’s pledge to open more entry points for humanitarian aid into Gaza but said “more should be done” to help civilians in the besieged Palestinian territory.
Summary:
- US President Joe Biden on Wednesday promised “ironclad” support for Israel as Iran threatens reprisals over a strike that levelled an Iranian consulate building in Damascus and killed two generals in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
- Neither Hamas nor Israel has shown any sign of agreeing to a truce in Gaza despite setting themselves a 48-hour deadline earlier this week and facing pressure from international mediators.
- The US Middle East envoy Brett McGurk called the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar and Iraq to ask them to deliver a message to Iran urging it to lower tensions with Israel following the suspected Israeli strike on Iran’s consulate building in Syria, a source with knowledge of the situation said to Reuters.
- The US military on Thursday said it had shot down 11 drones belonging to Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels after the group claimed it had targeted Israeli and American ships off the Gulf of Aden.
- At least 33,545 Palestinians have been killed and 76,094 wounded since Israel began its offensive on Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run enclave. Around 1,170 people were killed in the Hamas-led October 7 attacks and 250 people taken hostage, according to Israeli figures, with 132 still missing.
