The cabinet was expected to authorize Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, the defense minister, to initiate a retaliatory attack at their discretion, officials said.
Israel’s security cabinet was set to convene on Thursday evening, officials said, to discuss Israel’s response to an Iranian barrage of some 200 ballistic missiles that sent nearly the entire country into reinforced shelters last week.
Senior ministers, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, will discuss the overall plan for Israel’s retaliation, said two officials who spoke on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the discussions.
The cabinet was expected to authorize Mr. Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, the defense minister, to initiate the response at their discretion, the officials said.
Iran’s attack in early October came in retaliation for Israel’s killing of top leaders in Hamas, Hezbollah and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — all proxy militias funded by Iran. One of them, Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s political chief, was assassinated while staying in a state guesthouse in Tehran in July. The majority of the missiles were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome defense system. but a Palestinian was killed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank when a fragment of an Iranian missile fell on him.
International mediators and the Biden administration fear a massive Israeli strike could touch off a wider, direct escalation between Israel and Iran. The regional archnemeses’ decades-long shadow war escalated in direct action in April, when Iran launched hundreds of rockets and drones at Israeli territory. Most were intercepted.
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
