U.S. allies make frantic push to avert escalation of war

The United States and its allies worked to head off an Iranian attack on Israel and avert a wider regional war as concerns grew that a strike may come at any moment in retaliation for the killing of a top leader from the Hamas terrorist organization in Tehran.

The Biden administration moved additional forces to the region, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken conferred with top officials from Qatar and Egypt — the two countries helping lead negotiations for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas militants — on Monday, according to State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.

“It is a critical moment,” Blinken told reporters in brief comments Monday in Washington. “We are engaged in intense diplomacy — pretty much round the clock — with a very simple message: All parties must refrain from escalation, all parties must take steps to ease tensions.”

The focus has been to prepare for and possibly blunt an attack by Iran, which has warned it will respond after blaming Israel for killing a top Hamas political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in a government guest house in Tehran on July 31. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility for Haniyeh’s death, even as the country’s armed forces said another operation on Sunday killed a top Hamas commander, Jaber Aziz.

The U.S. push was only one element of a broader effort by officials who sought to head off tit-for-tat escalation between Iran and Israel that could push the region into all-out regional war.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi made a rare trip to Iran over the weekend, meeting Iran’s acting foreign minister, Ali Bagheri Kani. President Joe Biden also spoke with King Abdullah II of Jordan on Monday, according to the White House. Qatar, which has mediated between Iran and the U.S. in the past, has also been in contact with the Islamic Republic, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

In Israel, the patience of some is wearing thin after days of awaiting promised reprisals by Iran and its proxies. One top lawmaker even proposed preemption.

“It is beneath our dignity to sit fretting rather than to take the initiative,” Yuli Edelstein, head of parliament’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and a senior member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s conservative Likud party, said in a speech. “We know how to do that, and we should be doing that.”

For its part, Iran reaffirmed that it wants to avoid all-out war with Israel, while again vowing to retaliate.

“Reinforcing stability and security in the region will be achieved by punishing the aggressor and creating deterrence against Israel and its adventurism,” a spokesperson for Iran’s foreign ministry told reporters on Monday in Tehran. The Islamic Republic doesn’t want to escalate tensions but has the right to punish Israel under international law, he added.

The surge in tensions, almost 10 months into the war in Hamas-ruled Gaza, has scared many foreign airlines from the skies of Israel and neighboring Lebanon, where Hezbollah holds sway. The Pentagon has beefed up its Middle East presence, including with missile-interceptor warships.

The USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group is in the Gulf of Oman with an air wing that bristles with F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighter jets and other advanced aircraft. The carrier is accompanied by three destroyers capable of land attack and air defense — the USS Daniel Inouye, USS Michael Murphy and USS Russell.

Two additional missile defense destroyers, the USS Cole and USS Laboon, recently arrived in the Red Sea, according to a U.S. defense official who asked not to be identified discussing private information. A second U.S. defense official said the Air Force this week will deploy a squadron of stealthy F-22 Raptor fighters to the region. A squadron is comprised of between 16-24 jets.

Meanwhile, several U.S. personnel were injured in a suspected rocket attack at a military base in Iraq, U.S. defense officials said Monday, in what has been a recent uptick in strikes on American forces by Iranian-backed terrorists.

The U.S. defense officials said troops at al-Asad air base were still assessing the injuries and damage, and it appeared that as many as seven military troops and civilians were injured. Earlier Monday, Iraqi security officials confirmed the attack, but no group has claimed responsibility.