Biden and Netanyahu speak as Israel mulls Iran response

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - WASHINGTON — US President Joe Biden has held a much-anticipated call with Israel's prime minister — believed to be their first dialogue in weeks.

Benjamin Netanyahu and President Biden are thought to have discussed Israel's response to Iran's missile attack last week amid escalating tensions in the Middle East.

The White House said US Vice President Kamala Harris also joined the 30-minute call on Wednesday.

Not long after the call wrapped up, Israel's Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said its retaliatory attack against Iran would be "deadly, precise and above all surprising".

"They will not understand what happened and how it happened, they will see the results," Gallant said.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre described Biden and Netanyahu's conversation as "direct and very productive".

She told reporters that discussions on the Iran attack continued and said that as long as Beirut's main airport remained open, the US would continue to make flights available for Americans still in Lebanon.

Elsewhere in the Middle East region, fighting has continued between Hezbollah and Israel, with four people killed in an Israeli air strike on a Lebanese village near the southern city of Sidon.

In the small Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona, a couple out walking their dog were killed by Hezbollah rockets fired from Lebanon.

They are the first Israeli civilians to die since the cross-border conflict dramatically escalated 12 days ago.

Rockets have also struck the Israeli port city of Haifa, injuring at least five people.

Israel said it has carried out more than 1,100 air strikes since its ground invasion began in southern Lebanon on 30 September.

In an update shared on Wednesday evening, the Israeli Air Force said it had used fighter jets, helicopters and remotely manned aircraft to attack Hezbollah's sites — and has also attacked 300 targets in northern Gaza as part of the fighting in Jabalia.

Previously, Netanyahu has vowed Iran will "pay the price" for the Iranian barrage — which Tehran said was in response to Israel's invasion of Lebanon and high-profile assassinations of Hezbollah leaders, including the late Hassan Nasrallah.

The US has defended Israel's right to retaliate, but has also appeared to be trying to limit its response to Iran.

Lebanon’s government says as many as 1.2 million people have fled their homes over the past year. Almost 180,000 people are in approved centres for the displaced.

In addition, more than 400,000 people have fled into war-torn Syria, including more than 200,000 Syrian refugees — a situation that the head of the UN’s refugee agency described as one of “tragic absurdity”.

Hezbollah — a Shia Islamist political, military and social organization that wields considerable power in Lebanon — has remained defiant despite suffering a series of devastating blows in recent weeks, including the killing of its leader and most of its top military commanders.

On Monday, the group insisted it was “confident... in the ability of our resistance to oppose the Israeli aggression”.

Israel’s government has pledged to make it safe for tens of thousands of displaced residents to return to their homes near the Lebanese border after a year of cross-border fighting sparked by the war in Gaza.

Hostilities have escalated steadily since Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel on 8 October 2023 — the day after its ally Hamas's deadly attack on southern Israel. — BBC