Flurry of diplomacy to ease Mideast tensions as Israel awaits Iran attack

JERUSALEM

Vehicles drive past a huge banner showing the late Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, left, who was killed in an assassination last week, joining hands with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, in a square in downtown Tehran, Iran, Monday, Aug. 5, 2024.

Diplomatic pressure mounted Monday to avert an escalation between Iran and Israel following high-profile killings that have sent regional tensions soaring.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday that the United States was working around the clock to prevent escalation in the Middle East and urged Israel and Hamas to "break this cycle" of violence through a ceasefire.

With Iran believed to be planning a retaliatory strike against Israel following the killing of  top Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, Blinken said that escalation would "only lead to more conflict, more violence, more insecurity."

"We are engaged in intense diplomacy, pretty much around the clock, with a very simple message — all parties must refrain from escalation," he said as he met Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong.

"It's also critical that we break this cycle by reaching a ceasefire in Gaza," Blinken said.

He said a ceasefire "will unlock possibilities for more enduring calm, not only in Gaza itself, but in other areas where the conflict could spread."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said late Sunday that his country was "determined to stand against" Iran and its allied armed groups "on all fronts".

Palestinian armed group Hamas's political leader Haniyeh was killed in Tehran last week in an attack blamed on Israel, which has not directly commented on it.

The killing came hours after an Israeli strike on Beirut killed the military chief of Lebanon's Hezbollah movement, Fuad Shuk.

Tehran said on Monday that "no one has the right to doubt Iran's legal right to punish the Zionist regime" for Haniyeh's killing.

United States President Joe Biden, whose country has sent extra warships and fighter jets to the region in support of Israel, held crisis talks on Monday with his national security team.

The head of the U.S. military command covering the Middle East, General Michael Kurilla, arrived in Israel and met Israel's military chief Lieutenant-General Herzi Halevi for a security assessment, an Israeli military statement said.

Iraqi sources said a base hosting U.S. troops in Iraq came under rocket fire on Monday, after an American strike on July 30 killed four pro-Iran Iraqi fighters.

"Rockets were launched at Ain al-Assad base" in Anbar province, said a military source, while a commander in a pro-Iran armed group told AFP that at least "two rockets targeted" the base, without saying who had carried out the attack.

U.S. news site Axios earlier reported that Blinken told his counterparts from the G7 nations that any attack by Iran and Hezbollah could happen as early as Monday.

'Leave Lebanon'

Türkiye on Monday joined multiple nations calling on their citizens to leave Lebanon, where Hezbollah is based.

Numerous airlines have suspended flights to the country or limited them to daylight hours.

Germany's Lufthansa, which has already suspended flights to the region including Tel Aviv, said its planes would avoid Iraqi and Iranian airspace until at least Wednesday.

Royal Jordanian Airlines said it would be operating three flights this week to transport nationals out of Beirut.

 'Act urgently' 

This week Türkiye will submit a petition to join the world court genocide case against Israel, the nation’s president announced on Monday.

"Our parliamentary legal team will submit our petition to join the genocide case against Israel to the International Court of Justice in The Hague” on Wednesday, said Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Türkiye is doing everything in its power to end as soon as possible the “barbarism” that has claimed the lives of 40,000 innocents in Gaza over the past 10 months, he said after a Cabinet meeting in the capital Ankara.

The United Nations' rights chief Volker Turk called on "all parties, along with those states with influence, to act urgently to de-escalate what has become a very precarious situation".

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani and his Iraqi counterpart Fuad Hussein in a joint statement Monday "agreed to make every effort to avoid a regional escalation". Italy currently holds the rotating presidency of the G7 group of countries.

French President Emmanuel Macron also appealed for "restraint" in the Middle East, during conversations with the leaders of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, triggered by the Palestinian group's Oct. 7 attack on Israel, has already drawn in Iran-backed militants in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.

The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Militants also seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.