World Leaders Urge Restraint as Israel Weighs Retaliation Against Iran (2024)

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Israel Weighs Response to Iran’s Attack as Allies Push for Restraint

An Israeli official briefed on the cabinet discussions, speaking anonymously in order to talk about security matters, said several options were being considered, ranging from diplomacy to an imminent strike, but gave no further details. There was no immediate public statement by the ministers, or by the Israeli prime minister.

“We are weighing our steps,” Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, the Israeli military chief of staff, told Israeli soldiers on Monday in televised remarks during a visit to an Israeli air base. “The launching of so many missiles, cruise missiles and drones toward Israeli territory will be responded to.”

Mr. Netanyahu faces a delicate calculation — how to respond to Iran in order not to look weak, while trying to avoid alienating the Biden administration and other allies already impatient with Israel’s prosecution of the war in Gaza.

While the United States, Britain and France strongly condemned Iran’s assault and stepped in to help thwart it on Saturday, their calls for restraint highlighted the pressure Israel was facing to avoid a more direct confrontation with Iran.

President Biden on Monday hailed the successful interception of Iran’s airstrikes, which Iran carried out in retaliation for a deadly airstrike on an Iranian Embassy complex in Syria two weeks earlier.

“Together with our partners, we defeated that attack,” Mr. Biden said in his first public appearance since the strikes, speaking from the Oval Office where he was hosting Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani of Iraq.

“The United States is committed to Israel’s security,” he added, and was continuing to work toward a deal that would halt the war in Gaza, free the hostages there and prevent “the conflict from spreading beyond what it already has.”

Matthew Miller, a State Department spokesman, noted on Monday that Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken had spoken to officials in Britain, Egypt, Germany, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey in an effort to ease tensions.

“We continue to make clear to everyone that we talk to that we want to see de-escalation, that we don’t want to see this conflict further escalated,” Mr. Miller told reporters in Washington. “We don’t want to see a wider regional war.”

Still, he added, “Israel is a sovereign country. They have to make their own decisions about how best to defend themselves.”

As Israel considered its next move, Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, warned Israel again that, if attacked, Iran would “respond immediately to Israel’s adventures.”

“I reiterate that we are not seeking to increase tensions in the region,” Mr. Amir Abdollahian said, according to Iranian state media. But he added that if American bases in the region were used in an attack, Iran would “have no choice” but to target those bases.

Mr. Amir Abdollahian spoke to his British counterpart, David Cameron, on Monday, amid the diplomatic efforts to prevent further military strikes.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Britain described Iran’s attack as a “reckless and dangerous escalation” from a government that was “intent on sowing chaos in their backyard.” Faced with such threats, “Israel has our full support,” Mr. Sunak told British lawmakers. But he added that Britain was working with allies to de-escalate the situation, a point Mr. Cameron emphasized as well.

“We’re urging our Israeli friends to be smart as well as tough, to use head as well as heart, not to strike back, but to recognize that actually Iran has suffered a tactical and strategic defeat and Israel should now focus on Hamas and making sure they get that hostage deal and that we try to bring peace and stability to Gaza,” Mr. Cameron told the television program “Good Morning Britain.”

His German counterpart, Annalena Baerbock, went a bit further. Asked at a news conference on Monday whether Israel had the right to strike back, Ms. Baerbock said that “the right to self-defense means fending off an attack; retaliation is not a category in international law,” The Associated Press reported.

“Israel won in a defensive way,” she said, adding that “it is now important to secure this defensive victory diplomatically.”

Nearly all of the more than 300 drones and missiles that Iran fired at Israel on Saturday were shot down by Israel’s military with help from Britain, Jordan and the United States. The only serious casualty was a 7-year-old girl, Amina al-Hasoni, who was badly wounded.

On Monday, Iran said it was lifting airspace restrictions above Tehran, the capital, and reopening the domestic and international airports. In Israel, much of daily life returned to its usual rhythms, a day after the attack plunged the country into a state of anxiety.

In downtown Jerusalem, Jaffa Street was busy with shoppers and families out for a stroll at the start of a school break for the upcoming Passover holiday. Hip coffee shops and eateries in the fashionable German Colony neighborhood did a brisk business selling lattes and vegan lunch bowls.

On Tel Aviv’s beachfront promenade, Lev Mizrach, 41, said he was taking the opportunity to enjoy some sunny peace and quiet while he could.

“For today, it seems we have a moment to rest,” Mr. Mizrach said. “I am hopeful this thing with Iran is over, for now, because I am sick and tired of war.”

Dana Ben Ami, 34, said she, too, hoped the crisis was over.

“Iran did what they needed to do,” Ms. Ben Ami said. “Enough. We should all just stop now and call it a day and agree that it is over.”

After more than six months of war in Gaza, she said, Israelis have little appetite for a new conflict with Iran.

“We have had enough of it all,” she said. “It’s time for Bibi to stop sending our husbands and sons to fight his wars,” she added, referring to Mr. Netanyahu by a widely used nickname. “We are sick and tired of his government.”

Israel’s options range from openly striking Iran to not retaliating at all, a concession that some analysts said Israel could leverage to encourage further international sanctioning of Iran or the formalization of an anti-Iranian alliance.

There is a precedent for doing nothing: During the Gulf War of 1991, as Iraq lobbed Scud missiles at Israeli cities, Yitzhak Shamir, then Israel’s hawkish prime minister, exercised restraint at the urging of the Bush administration to preserve the American-led coalition with friendly Arab states.

Israel could also revert to the ways of its yearslong shadow war with Iran, orchestrating some kind of bloodless cyberattack or relying on spy craft and covert actions against Iranian interests, inside or outside Iran, without claiming responsibility for them.

Israel’s choice will have strategic implications for its war in Gaza against Hamas, which is funded and armed by Iran, and for Palestinian civilians who have been struggling for months with violence and severe hunger. More than 33,000 Gazans have been killed in the war, local health authorities say.

Shlomo Brom, a retired brigadier general and a former director of the Israeli military’s strategic planning division, said that if Israel responded with substantial force to the Iranian attack, it could incite a multifront war that would compel the Israeli leadership to move its attention away from Gaza.

In that case, General Brom said, Israel might choose to delay its plans to invade Rafah, in southern Gaza, where more than a million Palestinians have sought refuge. Israeli officials describe Rafah as Hamas’s last stronghold.

“It’s not comfortable for us to have simultaneous, high-intensity wars in multiple theaters,” General Brom said.

Reporting was contributed by Liam Stack, Aaron Boxerman, Sheera Frenkel, Patrick Kingsley, Peter Baker and Farnaz Fassihi.

Israeli civilians kill two Palestinians in the West Bank, officials say.

The Israeli military said the two men had been killed during a “violent exchange” between Israeli civilians and Palestinians that followed a report of a Palestinian attacking an Israeli shepherd. An initial probe indicated that the gunfire “did not originate” from Israeli soldiers, the military said.

The two Palestinians appeared to have been shot by Israeli civilians on the scene, said an Israeli security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was still underway.

The killings fed fears that the West Bank could become another front for a country already in its seventh month of war in the Gaza Strip.

About 500,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank live alongside roughly 2.7 million Palestinians under Israeli military occupation. Since the war began on Oct. 7, more than 400 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces there and in East Jerusalem, according to the United Nations.

Over the past few days, a renewed wave of violence has swept through the West Bank.

On Friday, a 14-year-old Israeli teenager went missing, prompting Israeli settlers to riot inside a Palestinian village, Al Mughayir. Jihad Abu Aliya, a 25-year-old resident, was fatally shot during a mob attack, according to the village mayor, Amin Abu Aliya.

The teenager, Binyamin Achimair, was found dead on Saturday after an intensive search; Israeli officials said he had been murdered in an act of terrorism and vowed to track down the perpetrators. In response, Israeli settlers, some of them armed, conducted a series of mob assaults in Palestinian towns, torching homes and cars, according to Palestinian witnesses.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Israelis to allow security forces to search for Mr. Achimair’s killers, but he did not denounce the mob attacks against Palestinians. Human rights groups have long charged that Israel turns a blind eye to settler violence and rarely brings perpetrators to justice.

In footage distributed on Sunday by Yesh Din, an Israeli rights group that tracks Jewish extremist violence in the West Bank, hooded figures can be seen setting a car ablaze while Israeli soldiers watch nearby without intervening.

Matthew Miller, the State Department spokesman, condemned Mr. Achimair’s killing in a statement on Monday. But he also said Washington was “increasingly concerned by the violence against Palestinian civilians and their property that ensued in the West Bank after Achimair’s disappearance.”

“We strongly condemn these murders, and our thoughts are with their loved ones,” Mr. Miller said. “ The violence must stop. Civilians are never legitimate targets.”

Iran pushes propaganda campaign to Arab nations, but not everyone is impressed.

From Saturday night into Sunday morning, Iran used drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles to attack sites in Israel. Few of the drones or missiles got through; instead American and Israeli missile defense efforts shot them down. But Iranian state-sponsored media and others aligned with Tehran said otherwise.

Audiences in Jordan, Saudi Arabia and other parts of the Middle East were apparently unimpressed with the Iranian attacks and largely unconvinced by Iran’s message campaign, according to FilterLabs AI, a company that tracks public opinion by monitoring local message boards and social media in various countries. FilterLabs' models analyze whether people are reacting to pieces of information positively or negatively.

It is difficult to know how many people in the Middle East saw the Iranian messages broadcast on television or pushed on Telegram. Al-Alam has a small fraction of the viewership of Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based broadcaster, or RT, the channel controlled by Moscow.

Iran began pushing its messaging in the days leading up to the attack, after Tehran had promised to retaliate for a strike on an Iranian diplomatic compound in Damascus on April 1. That communication intensified after the weekend attack.

Iran often pushes anti-Israeli messages that resonate with Arab populations in the Middle East. Their most successful campaigns are about their support for the Palestinians in Gaza and how they provide more support than any of the Arab nations.

Jonathan Teubner, the chief executive of FilterLabs, said the failure of Iran’s messaging could pose dangers. Iran could decide it needs to be more aggressive in responding to any potential new Israeli aggression, to establish itself as a country to be feared in the region.

“If everyone’s kind of like, ‘Oh, you guys didn’t really succeed,’ is Iran going to feel like it needs to do something more?” Mr. Teubner said.

A Lebanese official blames Israel’s spy agency for a killing near Beirut.

The Israeli prime minister’s office did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

Lebanon’s state news agency reported that the money changer, Muhammad Srour, 57, had gone missing for several days after visiting a money transfer shop to withdraw a payment. It said his body was found riddled with bullet wounds. The news agency referred to him only by his initials, but his family confirmed the identity.

The U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on Mr. Srour in August 2019, saying that he had provided “financial, material, technological support, financial or other services” to Hamas and that he had ties with Hezbollah, the powerful Lebanese militant group. Mr. Srour was accused of transferring “tens of millions of dollars” annually from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps to Hamas’ military wing.

During a televised address last week in the wake of the killing, Mr. Srour’s relatives called on the Lebanese authorities to find the perpetrators, and said that all his financial transactions were fully transparent.

Protesters block roads across the U.S. to push for a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip.

The disruptions did not just impact drivers. In Chicago, protesters on I-190 blocked traffic coming into O’Hare International Airport, and passengers who’d already arrived started walking on foot with their luggage to catch their flights. The airport announced on X that there were substantial delays and encouraged passengers to use alternative transportation. By mid morning, traffic was moving into O’Hare again, according to the airport.

In San Antonio, protesters carrying Palestinian flags blocked both sides of the Valero energy company headquarters, jamming traffic on the city’s northwest side. In New York City on Monday afternoon, hundreds of protesters blocked traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge, and police arrested some demonstrators.

And in Philadelphia, pro-Palestinian protesters organized a teach-in that blocked rush-hour traffic. Others led a funeral-like procession of cars up Interstate 95, and a third group gathered outside of City Hall, calling on local leadership to stop sending millions of dollars to Israel. They also made their way to Day & Zimmermann headquarters, which is a weapons manufacturer that organizers said supplies weapons to Israel, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

The protests were part of A15 Action, a solidarity agreement to “identify and blockade major choke points” that would cause the most economic impact, according to its website.

In Middletown, Conn., for example, pro-Palestinian protesters blocked employees entering and leaving a Pratt & Whitney factory that exports military engines for aircrafts. Police arrested multiple protesters, the Hartford Courant reported.

The movement on Monday purposefully coincided with Tax Day in the United States. Protesters and activists across the country said they were calling for a cease-fire in Gaza and for the United States to stop providing military aid to the Israeli government.

Protesters also gathered in major cities globally, including in Athens; Belfast, Northern Ireland; Sydney, Australia; and Barcelona, Spain. All echoed calls for a cease-fire.

Britain’s leaders condemn Iran’s attacks but urge Israel to show restraint.

But in a finely calibrated set of comments to lawmakers, Mr. Sunak also said that “all sides must show restraint.” He said he plans to speak soon by phone with his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, and added: “We are working urgently with our allies to de-escalate the situation and prevent further bloodshed. We want to see calmer heads prevail.”

British condemnation of Iran was clear. Mr. Sunak said the government in Tehran was “intent on sowing chaos” in the region, and had shown its “true colors.”

But in a two-hour question and answer session, Mr. Sunak urged restraint on Israel as it considers its next steps, noting that the government in Tehran was increasingly isolated on the international stage. Given that Iranian drones and missiles mainly failed to reach their targets, Mr. Sunak urged Israel to “take the win and avoid further escalation.”

Earlier, in an interview with Sky News, Britain’s foreign secretary, David Cameron, also condemned Iran but appeared to concede that the Iranians had the right to respond to a missile strike on April 1 on its embassy compound in Syria, which killed top commanders in Iran’s armed forces and has been widely blamed on Israel.

Asked what Britain would do if one of its consular buildings were attacked, Mr. Cameron said that it “would take very strong action,” adding that “countries have the right to respond when they feel they have suffered an aggression.”

But Mr. Cameron also described Iran’s reaction as disproportionate. “Look at the scale of that response, had those weapons not been shot down there would have been thousands of casualties,” he said.

In Parliament, Mr. Sunak faced relatively little direct criticism over Britain’s role in the defense of Israel, and several lawmakers pressed him to take further action and proscribe Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist group.

There was a continuing focus on the plight of Palestinians in Gaza, however. Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition Labour Party, said that while he supported British military involvement, and that there was no justification for Iran’s actions, “we cannot be naïve to the fact that one of the drivers of tension in the region is the ongoing war in Gaza.”

“I urge the government again to use every ounce of diplomatic leverage that we have, to make sure aid to Gaza is unimpeded and drastically scaled up,” he added.

Ukrainians see ‘hypocrisy’ in Western allies’ defense of Israel.

Since the start of this year, Russia has fired 1,000 missiles, 2,800 drones and 7,000 guided aerial bombs at Ukraine, according to Ukraine’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Sergiy Kyslytsya. While Washington and other allies have provided Kyiv with some powerful air defense weapons, they have not directly confronted Russian forces, and Ukrainian officials have long argued that the supplied weapons are insufficient to counter the threat from Moscow.

In the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, where 1.3 million people live with nightly air raid alarms, many people expressed anger and disappointment over the weekend that Ukraine’s allies, wary of provoking Russia, don’t give it the same protection as they did Israel.

“When rockets fly in Israel, the whole world writes about it,” said Amil Nasirov, a 29-year-old singer. “Here, rockets are flying, and we don’t have American bombers that are saving the sky like over Israel.”

“It’s very stupid; it’s hypocrisy,” he added. “And it’s like some devaluation of Ukrainian lives.”

Ukraine has begged since the outset of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022 for more tools to close its sky to Russian missiles. But the first Patriot missile systems from the United States and Germany — the only proven defense against ballistic missiles — did not arrive until the spring of 2023.

Ukraine also pleaded for F-16 fighter jets, which the Biden administration, which must approve any transfers of the American-made planes, long resisted providing them out of concern that Moscow would see it as an escalation.

It eventually relented, but Ukrainian pilots are still training on the systems and they are not expected to fly in the skies above Ukraine until this summer.

Ukrainian officials noted the role that fighter jets played in defending Israel as a sign of their importance in air defense.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said the response to the Iranian attack was clear evidence that “the world has everything necessary to stop any missiles, Shahed drones, and other forms of terror,” referring to the Iranian-made attack drones that have been a large part of Russia’s arsenal.

“The whole world sees what real defense is. It sees that it is feasible. And the whole world saw that Israel was not alone in this defense — the threat in the sky was also being eliminated by its allies,” Mr. Zelensky said in his latest nightly address.

Britain’s foreign secretary, David Cameron, said on Monday that while his country has been one of the staunchest military supporters of Ukraine — training thousands of troops and providing tanks and other advanced weapons — Britain could not shoot down Russian drones over Ukraine because it could inflame a wider war in Europe.

“If you want to avoid an escalation in terms of a wider European war, I think the one thing you do need to avoid is NATO troops directly engaging Russian troops,” Mr. Cameron told Britain’s LBC radio station. “That would be a danger of escalation.”

The United States remains the chief supplier of the munitions for Ukraine’s best air defense systems. But the last time Congress approved military aid for Ukraine was in October. In the intervening months, Ukraine’s air defenses have been critically depleted, while Russia has greater success in using air power to advance on the front line, attack Ukraine’s energy grid and inflict more casualties against civilians.

At least 126 people were killed and 478 more were injured in Russian strikes in March, a 20 percent increase compared with the previous month, according to the United Nations.

Liubov Sholudko contributed reporting from Kharkiv, Ukraine.

“We continue to make clear to everyone that we talk to that we want to see de-escalation,” Miller said. “We don’t want to see a wider war.” But, he added, “Israel is a sovereign country. They have to make their own decisions about how best to defend themselves.”

This is what the mood is like in Israel after Iran’s attack.

On Tel Aviv’s beachfront promenade, Lev Mizrach, 41, said he was taking the opportunity to enjoy some sunny peace and quiet while he could.

Iran attacked Israel in retaliation for a strike on an Iranian Embassy building this month in Syria that killed seven Iranian military officials. Mr. Mizrach said he hoped Israel would not propel the cycle of retaliation any further.

“For today, it seems we have a moment to rest,” Mr. Mizrach said. “I am hopeful this thing with Iran is over, for now, because I am sick and tired of war.”

Elsewhere in Tel Aviv, Dana Ben Ami, 34, agreed. She was hopeful, she said, that the crisis was over.

“Iran did what they needed to do,” Ms. Ben Ami said. “Enough. We should all just stop now and call it a day and agree that it is over.”

After more than six months of war in Gaza, she said, Israelis have little appetite for a new conflict with Iran.

“We have had enough of it all,” she said. “It’s time for Bibi to stop sending our husbands and sons to fight his wars,” she added, referring to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by a widely used nickname. “We are sick and tired of his government.”

The usual rhythms returned, as well, in parts of Israel where life has been reshaped by the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks, which Israeli officials say killed roughly 1,200 people, and the six months of war that came after it.

Towns across northern Israel that were evacuated months ago amid clashes with Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed armed group in Lebanon, remained largely empty and still on Monday. In Nahariya, the largest northern town to avoid such an evacuation order, the central business district was noticeably quiet.

Navy ships dotted the coastline and warplanes hummed overhead. Many residents of the town, six miles from the border with Lebanon, said they worried that the Iranian attack could lead to more intense cross-border fighting with Hezbollah.

Johnatan Reiss contributed reporting from Nahariya, Israel.

President Biden took no questions from reporters during his appearance with Iraq’s prime minister, giving no indication of what he wants Israel to do at this point. Reporters will again try to elicit answers at one other scheduled public appearance later today with Petr Fiala, the visiting prime minister of the Czech Republic.

Israel’s choices in responding to Iran’s attack all come with risks.

But this time Israel is juggling a host of conflicting interests, as well as some new factors.

If it does respond to the unprecedented Iranian attack — itself carried out in retaliation for a strike on an Iranian Embassy building in Syria that killed top commanders in Iran’s armed forces — Israel must weigh whether to do so in proportion to the actual results of the Iranian assault, which was largely blocked by air defenses and caused little damage, or to consider what could have happened if more than 300 drones and missiles had actually hit Israel.

Hard-right members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government are pushing for an immediate and forceful response, saying that the lack of one will further weaken Israel in its enemies’ eyes. Some Israelis see an opportunity to use military strikes to fulfill the longstanding Israeli goal of degrading Iran’s nuclear program.

But other Israelis are urging restraint or so-called “strategic patience,” wary, among other things, of taking the nation’s focus away from its war with Hamas in Gaza, the efforts to release its scores of hostages there and its skirmishes with Hezbollah along its northern border, as well as the risk of setting off a broader regional conflict without international support.

Analysts say the success of Israel and its allies, led by the United States, in blocking most of the Iranian attack has given Israel the leeway to choose how and when to respond, if at all.

“Israel has the apparent legitimacy to attack Iran,” said Yaakov Amidror, a former major general and national security adviser in Israel who is now at the conservative-leaning Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security.

“The other option is to say, we achieved what we wanted by eliminating the Al Quds Force commanders in Damascus, the Iranian attack failed, so let’s do what we need to do,” he said — which means finishing the campaign against Hamas in Gaza and investing in preparations to take on Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“Both are good options,” he said. “Each has pros and cons. It’s a matter of preference.”

Foreign leaders, chief among them President Biden, Israel’s most important supporter, have been pressing for restraint. Mr. Netanyahu has not publicly threatened Iran since the attack ended on Sunday morning. Other Israeli military and political leaders say they want to preserve and strengthen, not jeopardize, the alliance of Western and moderate Arab countries that, for the first time, came together to repel the Iranian attack and defend Israel.

The Iranian attack has given Israel a burst of international support after months of censure and opprobrium over the scope of the killing and hunger in Gaza, and some officials say that means Israel should act against Iran only in coordination with its allies.

“Israel versus Iran, the world versus Iran,” Benny Gantz, a centrist member of Israel’s war cabinet, said on Sunday, laying out the choices. “The strategic alliance and the regional cooperation system between us has been seriously put to the test, and now is the time for us to strengthen it. We’ll build a regional coalition against the Iranian threat and exact the price from Iran in the manner and at the time right for us.”

Israel’s options range from openly striking Iran, symbolically or with full force, to not retaliating at all, a concession that experts say Israel could leverage to encourage further international sanctioning of Iran or the formalization of the anti-Iranian alliance.

There is a precedent for doing nothing: During the Gulf War of 1991, as Iraq lobbed Scud missiles at Israeli cities, Yitzhak Shamir, then Israel’s hawkish prime minister, exercised restraint at the urging of the Bush administration to preserve the American-led coalition with friendly Arab states.

Israel could also orchestrate some kind of bloodless cyberattack or revert to the ways of its yearslong shadow war with Iran, relying on spy craft and covert actions against Iranian interests, inside or outside Iran, without claiming responsibility for them.

Israel’s allies make a full-court press to urge restraint.

Mr. Netanyahu’s government faces a delicate balancing act: how to respond to Iran in order not to look weak, while not alienating the Biden administration and other allies already impatient with Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza. While the United States, Britain and France strongly condemned Iran’s actions and swiftly came to Israel’s defense to help intercept Tehran’s strikes, their calls for restraint highlighted the intense pressure Israel was facing not to fuel a wider Middle East conflict.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken emphasized the need to prevent further escalation in a flurry of calls on Sunday with his counterparts in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, Britain and Germany, according to State Department statements. Britain’s foreign secretary, David Cameron, called the Iranian attack — which involved hundreds of missiles and drones, nearly all of which were intercepted — “reckless and dangerous,” but a “total failure.”

“We are urging that they shouldn’t escalate,” Mr. Cameron told Sky News, referring to Israel. “This is a time to think with head as well as heart. To be smart as well as tough.”

His German counterpart, Annalena Baerbock, went a bit further. Asked at a news conference on Monday whether Israel had the right to strike back, Ms. Baerbock said that “the right to self-defense means fending off an attack; retaliation is not a category in international law,” The Associated Press reported.

“Israel won in a defensive way,” she said, adding that “it is now important to secure this defensive victory diplomatically.”

President Emmanuel Macron of France also urged Israel to avoid a military escalation. He told French news media on Monday that France would work with allies to continue isolating Tehran by “increasing sanctions, increasing pressure on nuclear activities and then finding a path to peace in the region.”

The European Union’s Foreign Affairs Council was scheduled to meet on Tuesday to discuss ways to calm the conflict and protect regional security, Peter Stano, an E.U. spokesman, told reporters on Monday, adding that “regional escalation will benefit no one.”

Iranian officials signaled on Sunday that they were seeking to prevent further escalation, and that Iran’s retaliation was over unless Israel struck back. On Sunday evening, Israel’s war cabinet met without deciding how to respond to Iran’s assault, an official who was briefed on the meeting said. The cabinet was scheduled to meet again on Monday afternoon, Israeli news media reported.

Lara Jakes contributed reporting from Rome.

Oil markets shrug off Iran’s attack on Israel.

There is a sense in the market that prices are higher than would be justified based on the fundamentals of supply and demand. In a note after Iran’s onslaught on Saturday, Goldman Sachs estimated this risk premium at $5 to $10 a barrel.

Rystad Energy, a consulting firm, calculates that on fundamentals, Brent should be selling for $84 a barrel.

Essentially, the markets seem to be waiting to see what happens next. Iran appears to want to end this particular episode for now, while Israel is pondering its response.

The big worry is that if the conflict escalates, Iran, which occupies a strategic position on the shipping lanes from the Persian Gulf, could resort to “attacking tankers, pipelines and critical energy infrastructure,” said Helima Croft, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, an investment bank.