President Joe Biden on Wednesday said he would not support a retaliatory Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities.
Iran fired roughly 200 ballistic missiles at the Jewish state on Tuesday. The attacked caused minimal damage thanks to the joint efforts of Israel, the United States, and others in shooting down many of the missiles before they impacted. Others dropped onto uninhabited areas of Israel.
Israel has promised to respond to the Iranian strike. Biden on Wednesday tried to warn Israel off of hitting Iran’s nuclear facilities.
“The answer is no,” Biden told reporters Wednesday when asked about the potential of an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, according to CNN. “Israel has a right to respond. It should be a proportional response.”
Iran attacked Israel in response to a series of assassinations Israel has carried out in recent months against top officials in Iran and its terror network, including Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed by an Israeli airstrike late last week.
Prime Minister Benjanmin Netanyahu said in a statement after the missile attack that the Iranian regime would “pay for it.” Netanyahu did not indicate how Israel would choose to respond.
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“The regime of Iran does not understand our determination to defend ourselves,” Netanyahu said, according to CBS News. “They will understand. We will stand by the rule we established: Whoever attacks, we will attack them.”
Several potential targets have been floated as options for an Israeli retaliatory strike. Iran’s oil and natural gas fields are the foundation of its economy and wealth. The oil and gas infrastructure would likely make an easier target that Iran’s nuclear facilities, which are hardened.
Iran’s nuclear program and Tehran’s progress toward construction of a nuclear bomb has long been considered a major threat to Israeli national security. Netanyahu has made the threat from Iran central to his political campaigns and foreign policy.
Daily Wire editor emeritus Ben Shapiro said on Tuesday, while reacting to Iran’s attacks on the Jewish state, that there is widespread support in Israel to hit Iran’s oil and gas infrastructure and its nuclear facilities.
“There is great unity on both sides of the Israeli aisle. The left to the right, the Labor Party all the way over to Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, there’s great unity in Israel for the possibility of doing severe damage to the Iranian regime’s economic capabilities and nuclear capabilities,” Shapiro said.