WASHINGTON: The US and Israeli defense ministers spoke by phone on Friday to discuss efforts to maintain stability in the region, a Pentagon spokesman said, a day after reports of an Israeli attack on Iran.
Lloyd Austin, the US Secretary of Defence, “spoke with Israeli Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant today to discuss efforts to maintain regional stability, the latest developments in Gaza, and measures to accelerate humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza,” said Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder in a statement.
American media reported that Israel carried out a “limited strike” inside Iran on Friday morning. No official statement has yet been released by Israel.
Iranian officials downplayed this report and said that the sound of explosions heard in the city of Isfahan was the result of Iranian air defence systems firing at “suspicious objects”.
Tensions between Iran and Israel escalated on Saturday after Iran retaliated the attack on the country’s consulate in Syria, which killed seven Iranian army officers, including two of the country’s top commanders.
The defence ministers have been in constant telephone conversations since the October 7 cross-border attack by the Palestinian organization Hamas that killed around 1,200 people.
Since then, more than 34,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed and more than 76,800 injured in Gaza amid mass killings and shortages of basic goods.
According to a UN report, Israel’s war has internally displaced 85% of the population of the Gaza Strip due to severe shortages of food, clean water and medicine, and 60% of Gaza’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed.
Israel has been accused of genocide in the International Court of Justice. An initial ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop committing genocide and take steps to ensure humanitarian aid is delivered to civilians in the Gaza Strip.
On Israel’s planned invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than 1.5 million people have fled Israel’s ongoing war, the United States reiterated that it does not support “a major operation” in the city.
