Iran-Israel Proxy Conflict

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    Hezbollah’s Rockets Remain a Threat Despite Israel’s Crushing Offensive

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    Israel’s failure to tamp down the short-range rocket threat has put pressure on its government to embrace a cease-fire.Hezbollah has suffered crushing setbacks in Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon and cross-border incursion.The Israeli operation has succeeded beyond U.S. officials’ expectations: Israel has severely diminished Hezbollah’s ability to strike deep into the country and significantly weakened its political and military leadership.But Israel has failed to eliminate the short-range rockets that the Lebanese militia fires into the northern half of the country, according to U.S. officials. As long as the rocket fire continues, Israel’s campaign is unable to fulfill one of its main goals — securing northern Israel so that tens of thousands of residents can return home there.Hezbollah began rocket strikes on northern Israel in support of its ally Hamas in Gaza after Hamas attacked Israel last October. Israel launched its offensive against Hezbollah, at least in part, because of political pressure from Israelis who were evacuated.Now, Israel’s failure to tamp down the short-range rocket threat has put pressure on its government to embrace a cease-fire and at least a temporary halt to hostilities.While the Biden administration has struggled to reach a cease-fire deal between Hamas and Israel in Gaza, officials familiar with the negotiations with Hezbollah say there is a realistic chance for a deal covering Lebanon. Amos Hochstein, a White House envoy, arrived in Beirut on Tuesday to try to finalize some of the details and said this was “a moment of decision-making.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Iran Debates Whether It Could Make a Deal With Trump

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      Some in Iran’s new, more moderate government think the result of the presidential election provides an opportunity to make a lasting deal with the United States.President Donald J. Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear pact between Iran and world powers, imposed tough economic sanctions on Iran and ordered the killing of its top general. And Iran, federal prosecutors said on Friday, plotted to assassinate Mr. Trump before November’s election.Yet despite that charged history, many former officials, pundits and newspaper editorials in Iran have openly called for the government to engage with Mr. Trump in the week since his re-election. Shargh, the main reformist daily newspaper, said in a front-page editorial that Iran’s new, more moderate president, Masoud Pezeshkian, must “avoid past mistakes and assume a pragmatic and multidimensional policy.”And many in Mr. Pezeshkian’s government agree, according to five Iranian officials who asked that their names not be published because they were not authorized to discuss government policy. They say Mr. Trump loves to make deals where others have failed, and that his outsize dominance in the Republican Party could give any potential agreement more staying power. That might give an opening for some kind of lasting deal with the United States, they argue.“Do not lose this historic opportunity for change in Iran-U.S. relations,” wrote a prominent politician and former political adviser to Iran’s government, Hamid Aboutalebi, in an open letter to Iran’s president. He advised Mr. Pezeshkian to congratulate Mr. Trump on winning the election and set a new tone for a pragmatic and forward-looking policy.President Masoud Pezeshkian in Tehran in September. Some in Mr. Masoud’s government are calling on him to engage President-elect Donald J. Trump.Arash Khamooshi for The New York TimesStill, critical decisions in Iran are made by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and he banned negotiations with Mr. Trump during his first term. In Iran’s factional politics, even if Mr. Pezeshkian wanted to negotiate with Mr. Trump, he would have to get Mr. Khamenei’s approval.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Iran and Trump Are Front of Mind at Saudi Summit

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      Leaders from across the Arab and Muslim world were in Riyadh for a meeting officially convened to discuss the fighting in Gaza and Lebanon.Leaders from across the Arab world gathered on Monday in the capital of Saudi Arabia for a summit that came at a delicate moment for the kingdom, which has signaled a rapprochement with Iran after a violent, decades-long rivalry.The meeting was officially convened to discuss the fighting in Gaza and Lebanon, where Israel’s military is battling Iran-backed militant groups. It takes place amid heightened regional tensions and the prospect of a hawkish Trump administration on Iran.Saudi Arabia had been preparing to recognize Israel, but the wars in Gaza and Lebanon cooled that prospect. Now, the kingdom and its allies find themselves warming to Tehran. Last month, the foreign ministers of the Persian Gulf states met for the first time as a group with their Iranian counterpart. On Sunday, the chief of staff of Saudi Arabia’s armed forces met with his Iranian counterpart in Tehran — further signaling a thaw in relations as Iran considers a response to Israeli attacks on its territory.Saudi Arabia’s powerful crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, emphasized the relationship in his opening remarks at the summit on Monday.“We call on the international community to compel Israel to respect Iran’s sovereignty and not to attack its territory,” he told the audience in Riyadh, the Saudi capital. Saudi Arabia and Iran have been locked in a long battle for regional dominance, a rivalry shaped by the competing branches of Islam each country embraces. Iran’s network of regional proxies — which includes Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon — has long been a particular source of concern for Saudi Arabia.While Hamas and Hezbollah have been weakened by the Israeli military’s operations in Gaza and Lebanon, Iran still arms and supports the Houthis in Yemen — a group that has been implicated in attacks on the kingdom.“The issue that we’ve had, and that was the basis for the divergence in our relationship, was Iran’s regional behavior, which from our perspective has not contributed to stability,” the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, said last week. “We are having very, very clear and honest conversations with the Iranians.”Analysts said that Saudi Arabia could also be using the summit in Riyadh as an opportunity to send a message to the incoming Trump administration. President-elect Donald J. Trump has said he will “stop wars” when he takes office, noted Hasan Alhasan, a senior fellow for Middle East policy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.“Saudi Arabia could be trying to position itself as an attractive and credible choice for the Trump administration to work with if Trump follows through with his pledge to broker a deal to end the war, especially given the fact that diplomatic efforts led by other regional mediators, notably Qatar and Egypt, have failed to bear fruit,” Mr. Alhasan said. More

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      Israeli Strike Kills 23 People North of Beirut, Lebanon Says

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      Rescue workers were still searching the rubble after the strike in the village of Almat, in the Jbeil district of Lebanon, the country’s health ministry said.An Israeli strike on a village north of Beirut killed at least 23 people and wounded six others on Sunday morning, Lebanon’s health ministry said.It said that rescue workers were still searching the rubble after the strike in Almat, in the Jbeil district on the Lebanese coast, and that three children were among the dead.Photographs from the scene showed a bulldozer on a steep hillside scooping piles of debris from at least one building that appeared to have been destroyed, while emergency workers also picked through the wreckage. The twisted remains of several vehicles also stood nearby.There was no immediate comment from Israel’s military about the strike in the Jbeil district, which is around 18 miles northeast of the Lebanese capital, Beirut.The Israeli military has been widening its campaign against Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group, across Lebanon in recent weeks.The operations against Hezbollah were initially focused on southern Lebanon, with the stated aim of crippling the group’s ability to fire rockets across the border into Israel. But they have expanded to include cities and towns across Lebanon, including places far from that border — like the Jbeil district.Another target of the widening campaign has been the Bekaa Valley in northeastern Lebanon, which is home to the historic city of Baalbek. Israeli strikes killed 20 people in Baalbek and the towns around it on Saturday, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.Baalbek, in northeastern Lebanon, has been hit repeatedly in recent weeks. Dozens of people have been killed and most of the city’s population has fled.The Israeli military said it had struck “Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure sites” near the port city of Tyre and near Baalbek on Saturday.Lebanon’s health ministry cited five separate deadly incidents in Baalbek and the surrounding area on Saturday, including one in which 11 people were killed. In a statement on Saturday night, it added that 14 people were wounded. The ministry gave few details of the attacks and did not say whether the casualties were civilians or Hezbollah fighters.Hezbollah’s cross-border attacks have persisted even as Israel’s campaign has intensified. The group fired 70 projectiles — likely missiles or drones — across the frontier on Saturday and 10 on Sunday, according to Israel’s military. Many were intercepted by Israel’s air defenses or fell in open areas, it said.The fighting has driven around one fifth of Lebanon’s population of around 5.3 million from their homes, according to the Lebanese government. More

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      Measured Comments From Israel and Iran on New Round of Strikes

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      Israel’s prime minister said Israeli airstrikes on Iran had achieved their goals, and Iranian officials did not threaten retaliation.Iran’s leaders emphasized on Sunday that they had a right to respond to Israel’s airstrikes a day earlier but appeared to take a measured tone, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the assault had achieved its objectives.Their comments came as Israeli and American negotiators headed to Qatar in an effort to revive long-stalled talks aimed at brokering a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip. Earlier, Israel carried out more deadly attacks in northern Gaza and in southern Lebanon.In his first public comments since Israeli warplanes struck Iran on Saturday, Mr. Netanyahu said the strikes — carried out in retaliation for a missile barrage Iran fired at Israel on Oct. 1 — had severely damaged Iran’s defensive capabilities and its ability to produce missiles.Iranian and Israeli officials told The New York Times that the strikes had destroyed air-defense systems that protect important energy sites but did not hit the facilities themselves. The Biden administration had urged Israel not to attack Iran’s oil and nuclear sites.Iran must now decide whether to respond.On Sunday, in his first public comments about the strikes, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the strikes “should neither be magnified nor downplayed,” the Iranian state news agency IRNA reported. He did not appear to be explicitly calling for retaliation.Although Iranian officials emphasized that their country has the right to respond, Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said late Saturday that the country would “answer any stupidity with wisdom and strategy.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Behind the Tactical Gains Against Iran, a Longer-Term Worry

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      Experts inside and outside the Biden administration fear that Iran may conclude it has only one defense left: racing for an atomic weapon.When Israeli fighter jets roared off the runways on Friday night, on a thousand-mile run to Iran, they headed for two major sets of targets: the air defenses that protect Tehran, including Iran’s leadership, and the giant fuel mixers that make propellant for Iran’s missile fleet.Israel’s military leaders, in calls with Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and other senior American officials, had concluded that taking out the air defenses would make Iran’s leaders fearful that Tehran itself could not be defended. That feeling of vulnerability was already high, after Israel decimated the leadership of Hamas and Hezbollah, Tehran’s proxy forces that could strike Israel, over the past month.The surprise element for the Iranians was a set of strikes that hit a dozen or so fuel mixers, and took out the air defenses that protected several critical oil and petrochemical refineries, according to a senior U.S. official and two Israeli defense officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning.Without the capability to mix fuel, Iran cannot produce more of the type of ballistic missiles that its forces fired on Israel on Oct. 1, the immediate provocation for Israel’s strike. And it could take more than a year to replace them from Chinese and other suppliers.By Saturday, American and Israeli officials were claiming a major success, but lurking behind the satisfaction with the tactical gains lies a longer-term worry. With Iran’s Russian-produced air defenses in smoldering piles, many fear the Iranian leaders may conclude they have only one defense left: racing for an atomic weapon.That is just what American strategists have been desperately trying to avoid for a quarter-century, using sabotage, cyberattacks and diplomacy to keep Tehran from crossing the threshold to become a full nuclear-armed power.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Israel Struck Air Defenses Around Critical Iranian Energy Sites, Officials Say

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      Israel’s attacks on Iran early Saturday destroyed air-defense systems set up to protect several critical oil and petrochemical refineries, as well as systems guarding a large gas field and a major port in southern Iran, according to three Iranian officials and three senior Israeli defense officials.The sites targeted by Israel, according to the officials, included defenses at the sprawling Bandar Imam Khomeini petrochemical complex, in Khuzestan Province; at the major economic port Bandar Imam Khomeini, adjacent to it; and at the Abadan oil refinery. Air-defense systems were also struck in Ilam Province, at the refinery for the gas field, called Tange Bijar, said the officials, one of them with Iran’s oil ministry.The Iranian and Israeli officials familiar with the attacks spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence.Israel’s destruction of the air-defense systems has raised deep alarm in Iran, the three Iranian officials said, as critical energy and economic hubs are now vulnerable to future attacks if the cycle of retaliation between Iran and Israel continues.“Israel is sending a clear message to us,” said Hamid Hosseini, an expert on Iran’s oil and gas industry and a member of the Iran-Iraq Chamber of Commerce. “This can have very serious economic consequences for Iran, and now that we understand the stakes we need to act wise and not continue the tensions.”Iran’s military announced that four soldiers working with air defenses were killed in Israel’s attacks. The Iranian media said the casualty numbers would probably increase.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Israeli Attack Puts Iranians on Edge: ‘The Vibe Is Not Normal’

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      Iranians voiced a sense of anxiety and uncertainty on Saturday after a round of retaliatory strikes by Israel on their country, but some said they felt a dim hope about what may lie ahead.“Today at work, everyone was speaking of the attacks,” said Soheil, a 37-year-old engineer who lives in the central city of Isfahan. His colleagues saw some reason for hope that a wider war could be averted, given that Israel attacked only military targets on Saturday, he added.“It seems that people are hopeful that soon the situation will be back to normal,” he told The New York Times when reached by telephone.“The vibe is not normal, though, at the moment,” he said. “People are experiencing different emotions: Some are worried, some indifferent and some are even happy, because they believe that Israel attacks will humble the regime a bit.”Soheil, like other Iranians reached by The Times on Saturday, asked not to be identified by his full name for fear of retribution.Iranian officials and the state news media played down the Israeli attack, calling the damage “limited” and claiming that Iran’s air defense had intercepted the strikes.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More