Read, Digital Desk : US President Donald Trump urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to tread cautiously and pushed him to avoid counterstriking Iran after it launched missile attacks on Israel following the ceasefire that began last April.
Trump said he personally warned Netanyahu when Israel was set to target dozens of “critical” Iranian facilities. “Bibi, you have to be careful or you’ll be isolated very soon,” Axios quoted Trump as saying.
Netanyahu prepared to back down
Following the conversation Netanyahu agreed to hold back assuming no new attack by Iran will take place, according to an Israeli official. It came after a new round of cross-border attacks between Iran and Israel, marking the first since their brief border war began in April and two months after the recent ceasefire went into effect. Iran fired a barrage of missiles on Israel Sunday evening and Israeli warplanes retaliated with missile strikes targeting military bases in western and central Iran.
Attacks by both sides cease
Both countries agreed to stop attacking each other by Monday, with Iran announcing it was holding back and Netanyahu soon following suit with the promise that Israeli attacks would cease. Trump later claimed that he spoke with Netanyahu and asked him to be careful based on his “own discretion and intelligence”.
“I said we had to be smart about what we were doing and the fact is, we’re so close to a deal, very strong very good deal,” Trump was quoted by the BBC.
The US was lobbied by several countries
Trump added that several nations in the region contacted Washington and pressed for the US to get involved. “These countries wanted us involved very badly. They like the deal we’re negotiating.” Furthermore according to Axios he had been receiving threats from Iran to act similarly if Israel failed to reciprocate the attack.
Trump revealed that Israel’s retaliatory attacks were not extensively communicated to the White House prior to their inception. “They had already gone into operation, but I ended up restraining them (the Israeli attacks).”
An Israeli official said Netanyahu along with other high-ranking Israeli officials discussed targets for a retaliatory attack with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Trump and Netanyahu’s latest conversation was calmer than the previous.
Both Israeli and US officials suggested that the latest call between Trump and Netanyahu was much calmer than the call the two had a couple days prior. One US official describing it as “a polite conversation” and another said that it “wasn’t a shouting match.”
During the conversation Netanyahu argued that failure to respond would undermine both the US and Israeli credibility, with Axios citing an Israeli official stating he worried an Israeli absence of action would embolden Iran, suggesting it could deter future US or Israeli military action.
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