Israel calls for tightened sanctions on Iran as government debates response to attack

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Israel’s foreign minister on Tuesday demanded new sanctions on Iran as top officials met for a third day in response to Tehran’s weekend attack.

Foreign minister Israel Katz said that, “alongside the military response” Israel was considering, he had contacted dozens of countries as part of a “diplomatic offensive against Iran”.

He said he had asked them to support sanctions on Iran’s missile programme and declare the country’s Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organisation. “Iran must be stopped now — before it is too late,” Katz wrote on X.

An Israeli government official added that the country was determined to respond to the Iranian attack on its territory, which included more than 300 missiles and drones.

But the official added that the five-member war cabinet — which previously met on Sunday and Monday — was taking into account US concerns that any action should “not be over the top”.

The meeting on Tuesday, which included Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was not of the full war cabinet but instead a “security consultation”, the official said.

Tehran has threatened to hit back at Israel again if the Jewish state retaliates.

Iran said its President Ebrahim Raisi held a phone conversation with Russia’s Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, during which the Iranian leader criticised the “destructive role played by the US and some western states”, as well as by the UN and the UN Security Council in the aftermath of the suspected Israeli strike on Iran’s consulate in Syria.

Iran’s attack, the first directly launched from its territory against Israel, came in response to the strike this month that killed several senior Iranian commanders.

“The Islamic republic exercised its right to legitimate defence in compliance with the UN Charter and carried out an operation against the very compounds that had been used in the Israeli attack,” Raisi said. “The operation to punish the aggressor was successful,” he added, pledging a “crushing, extensive and painful” response to any act against Iran’s interests.

Raisi also told the Emir of Qatar in a phone call on Monday that Tehran’s response to “the smallest move against its interests will be fierce, massive and painful”, state media reported.

Israel’s military chief, Herzi Halevi, signalled the likelihood of retaliation in comments he made on Monday night at an Israeli air base hit by the Iranian strike. “We are looking ahead and weighing our [next] steps, and this launch of so many missiles, cruise missiles, and [drones] into the territory of the state of Israel will be met with a response,” he said.

Israel’s western allies have urged the country to respond in a measured way, with both the US and the UK making clear that they will not participate in any retaliatory strike.

The Damascus consulate attack marked a significant escalation of the hostilities that have engulfed the Middle East since the war between Hamas and Israel erupted in October. Iranian leaders claimed it was tantamount to a strike on Iran and vowed revenge.

Israel and a US-led international coalition of regional partners intercepted “99 per cent” of the projectiles in Iran’s retaliatory barrage, according to the Israeli military, causing minimal damage to an air base in the country’s south but critically injuring a young girl.