Arab and Western Nations Urge Restraint as Israel-Iran Tensions Simmer
Arab and Western countries, seeking to head off a major regional conflict in the Middle East, are urging Iran to show restraint after it vowed to attack Israel in retaliation for the killing of Hamas’s political leader in Tehran last week.
The diplomatic push by Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which have close ties to Washington, came as the United States, France and other countries have also been trying to lower tensions in the Middle East and renew stalled efforts to achieve a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip.
Anxiety across the region has been running high since an explosion in Tehran — widely attributed to Israel — killed Hamas’s political chief, Ismail Haniyeh, on July 31, just hours after an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon killed a top Hezbollah commander, Fuad Shukr.
Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon have vowed to retaliate for both killings. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has promised, in turn, to “exact a heavy price for any act of aggression against us, from whatever quarter.”
Hezbollah, the most powerful of Iran’s proxy forces, and Israel have been trading almost daily fire across the Israel-Lebanon border for months, and Israeli officials have suggested that an invasion of Lebanon could be coming, a prospect the White House and others have tried tamp down. A full-fledged war between Israel and Hezbollah, or one involving Iran directly, would be even more dangerous and destabilizing to the region.
As the region girds for the possibility of a wider war, Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman al-Safadi, has met twice over the last week with senior Iranian officials, including the newly elected Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, in a rare visit to Tehran.
“Jordan informed the Iranian brothers of its message in a clear manner,” Muhannad al-Mubaidin, Jordan’s minister of government communications, said in an interview. “We will not allow for our airspace or land to be used for any purpose. We are not willing to be a battlefield.”
Saudi Arabia on Wednesday convened an emergency meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, a forum of Muslim countries, where the Saudi deputy foreign minister, Waleed El-Khereiji, called the assassination of Mr. Haniyeh a “blatant violation” of Iran’s sovereignty — the strongest official statement the kingdom has made on the killing.
“We have called for de-escalation by all parties involved and an immediate end to Israel’s war in Gaza,” he said. He added that the kingdom called on the international community to force Israel to “bear responsibility for its crimes,” including attacks on Palestinian civilians.
Saudi Arabia and Iran have recently taken steps to improve their antagonistic relationship, and they have been aligned — along with many other Muslim nations — in opposing Israel’s conduct in Gaza.
In April, Jordan helped the United States and other allies intercept missiles and drones fired by Iran at Israel, after senior Iranian military officers were killed in an airstrike on Iran’s embassy complex in Damascus, Syria. That strike was widely attributed to Israel, where some officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, have acknowledged responsibility.
But Jordan also has millions of citizens of Palestinian origin, including many who fiercely oppose helping Israel.
“Jordan has to strike a very delicate balance,” said Saud al-Sharafat, a former brigadier general in Jordan’s intelligence service and director of the Shorufat Center for Globalization and Terrorism Studies, in Amman, Jordan. “It’s like walking on a tightrope.”
On Friday, the United States said it had ordered more combat aircraft and warships capable of shooting down missiles and drones to the Middle East in response to threats from Iran and its proxies.
President Emmanuel Macron of France spoke to the Iranian president, Mr. Pezeshkian, on Wednesday, and urged him to “do everything in his power to avoid a new military escalation, which would be in nobody’s interest, including Iran’s, and which would cause lasting damage to regional stability,” the French government said.
Qatar’s prime minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, told Antony J. Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, that he had spoken on Monday to Iran’s foreign minister, Ali Bagheri Kani, about the need for restraint, according to an official familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy.
The Qatari prime minister also told Mr. Blinken that Qatar had delivered a similar plea to Hezbollah, which says it is fighting Israel in support of Hamas. Israel invaded Gaza after Hamas led the deadly attack on Israel on Oct. 7, and Hezbollah has said it would halt hostilities with Israel once that war ends.
On Tuesday, Egypt’s foreign minister, Badr Abdelatty, called Mr. Bagheri Kani, as part of his country’s effort to “contain the escalation in the region,” the Egyptian foreign ministry said in a statement.
Hamas’s selection of Yahya Sinwar, its hard-line leader in Gaza and a planner of the Oct. 7 attacks, to replace Mr. Haniyeh as the head of its political wing refocused attention on his decisive role in the negotiations to achieve a cease-fire in Gaza and free the hostages there.
Mr. Sinwar has made no public appearances since the start of the war and is believed to be hiding in tunnels underneath Gaza to evade the Israeli military, which has vowed to kill him. Despite that, he is thought to have been dictating Hamas’s position in the cease-fire talks.
“He isn’t going to make any more concessions,” said Mkhaimar Abusada, a professor of political science who taught at Al-Azhar University in Gaza and is now living in Cairo. “He knows more than anyone else that the hostages are the only card he has.”
American officials have blamed Mr. Sinwar for holding up a cease-fire deal.
“As the chief decision maker, he needs to decide now to take this deal, to get a cease-fire in place, to get some of those hostages home, and to get us all an opportunity to get more humanitarian assistance in,” John F. Kirby, a spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council, said on Wednesday.
But Mr. Netanyahu has also taken a hard line, saying last week that he wanted to put more military pressure on Hamas to extract more concessions from the group. He has shrugged off U.S. pressure to end the war, saying that Israel must destroy Hamas as a fighting and governing force. Some Israelis whose relatives were kidnapped on that day have protested Mr. Netanyahu’s stance, saying he should make a deal.
On Wednesday, the Israeli military ordered new evacuation orders for parts of northern Gaza that were among the first to be overrun by its invasion last fall. For several months, Israeli forces have been returning to places they had previously seized and devastated, as Hamas fighters regroup there.
Hamas’s decision to promote Mr. Sinwar only added to the anxiety of some Palestinians in Gaza. Some said he was not likely to agree to a cease-fire that would stop the Israeli offensive that has killed more than 39,000 people in the enclave, according to Gaza’s health officials.
Mr. Sinwar is “the most obstinate man I have ever seen,” and has been “willing to do anything for the sake of the movement’s survival,” said Husam al-Khateeb, a 45-year-old technician at a local radio station in Deir al Balah, in central Gaza.
He said that a solution to the conflict and an end to the war could only come from Iran, its proxies and the United States.
Nisreen Sabouh, a 37-year-old displaced mother of four, said she had hoped that the killing of Mr. Haniyeh would allow Israel to declare that it was closer to its stated goal of destroying Hamas.
“But now, with Sinwar taking over, I don’t believe this will bring the negotiations to a better place,” she said. Mr. Sinwar, she added, “is tough and everyone knows that.”
Others said Mr. Sinwar’s particular role was irrelevant, given the scale of the misery and destruction in Gaza.
“I don’t care who Hamas chooses to lead the movement inside or outside,” said Safaa Oda, 39, a cartoonist from the southern city of Rafah who was has been living in a tent in Khan Younis.
“What we need is a cease-fire,” she said. Mr. Sinwar’s appointment, she added, will make the suffering in Gaza “worse than ever before.”
Reporting was contributed by Bilal Shbair, Hiba Yazbek, Abu Bakr Bashir, Vivian Yee, Ephrat Livni, Aurelien Breeden, Vivian Nereim and Anushka Patil.
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