Iran’s Drone Strike Hits Israel

Ishtiaq Ahmed

London: Iran has launched a drone missile attack on Israel. This is the first  direct attack on the Jewish state.

It represents a major escalation in the six-month-old war in Gaza, threatening to drag the Middle East into a full-blown regional conflagration.

Iran has stated that the missile attack was “In response to the numerous crimes committed by the Zionist regime… the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fired dozens of missiles and drones at specific targets inside the occupied territories [Israel],”.

The Iranian attack comes against the backdrop of the unabated genocide of Palestinians in Gaza by the Zionist Israeli regime headed by Netanyahu.

Thousands of Palestinians have been indiscriminately murdered and displaced by Israeli military machines over the past six months, and the US and its allies, instead of stopping the genocide, have been aiding and abetting Netanyahu.

The Iranian response is in retaliation for the April 1 strike on an Iranian diplomatic building in the Syrian capital of Damascus, which killed Gen. Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior figure in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards, and eight other officers.

Although Israel has not accepted the responsibility, clearly Iran has blamed Israel for the strike.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, repeatedly promised to respond against Israel over the attack, however, the world has been waiting anxiously for what that response may look like. This has now come in the form of a direct drone missile attack.

Iran’s somewhat unexpected response has exposed the US‘s dual policy of unreservedly supporting Israel throughout the Gaza genocide whilst giving the impression that it is pressuring Netanyahu to show restraint in Gaza. The Biden administration has now abandoned its duality by categorically coming out on the side of Israel. 

 The UN has also condemned the Iranian attack  and Britain and France have pledged their support for Israel. Rishi Sunak, the British Prime Minister, has admitted to the direct involvement whereby British military planes have been involved in shooting down the Iranian drones, 

Russia has called for all parties to “show restraint” and “express concern” over further escalation. “We are counting on the regional states to solve the existing problems with political and diplomatic means,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Moscow added that the UN Security Council failed to “adequately” respond to a strike on an Iranian consulate in Syria by opposing a Russian-drafted UN Security Council statement that would have condemned an attack on Iran’s embassy compound in Syria.

The response thus far from the Muslim world, as expected, has been nonexistent or muted. It would be of great interest to see how some of the staunch Muslim allies of America, like Saudi Arabia and Jordan, would line up.

Pakistan’s position is made precarious by a number of competing factors: These include the need to keep Iran in the fold as a key neighbor. It also cannot afford to anger the US, which, in many respects, holds its fate.

Pakistan also has to closely watch the lead from Saudi Arabia.

Equally, important are the concerns on the domestic front. One expects heightened support for the Iranian action, particularly among the segments of the public that feel strongly that Israel has been allowed to carry out the genocide of Palestinians without a proportionate response from the Muslim world.