Rishi Sunak walks out of 10 Downing Street (Alamy)
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Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said it was “in no one’s interests” to see an escalation of the conflict in the Middle East after Israel fired retaliatory strikes against Iran on Friday morning.
According to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Iran launched more than 300 drones and missiles at Israel on Saturday, 99 percent of which were intercepted.
Britain helped Israel on Saturday evening to largely intercept an Iranian attack by hundreds of drones and missiles. G7 leaders, including Sunak, said they were united in condemning the “reckless and dangerous” attack by Iran’s “despotic regime”.
Britain has joined its Western allies in calling on Israel to refrain from retaliating against Iran.
But on Friday morning, Israel launched a limited attack on the Iranian regime. Air defenses were attacked in several areas, where Iranian state media confirmed that three drones were hit and shot down. No civilian deaths or casualties have been recorded so far.
Israel’s retaliatory strikes took place on the birthday of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader. Iran has said it has no immediate plans to retaliate and fire missiles at Israel.
On Friday morning, Sunak said he wanted “calm heads” to prevail in the Middle East and urged caution.
“It is an evolving situation. It would not be right for me to speculate until the facts are clear and we work to confirm the details with allies,” he said.
“We condemned Iran’s reckless and dangerous barrage of missiles against Israel on Saturday and Israel absolutely has the right to self-defense.
‘But like I said [Israeli] When I spoke to Prime Minister Netanyahu last week, and more generally, significant escalation is not in anyone’s interest. What we want to see is calm heads throughout the region.”
Foreign Secretary David Cameron met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog earlier this week to convince the country not to strike back. However, on Wednesday Cameron said it was “clear that the Israelis are making a decision to act.”
Israeli military action in the Middle East continues to receive broad support within the Tory party. Mel Stride, the Work and Pensions Secretary, said Times radio he believed Israel had the “right to defend itself” but said the British government was working to de-escalate tensions.
Tory MP Andrew Percy, vice-chairman of the Conservative Friends of Israel, said PoliticsHome that while he wanted to avoid a “significant escalation” of the conflict in the Middle East, he believed Israel had the “absolute right to strike back against the Iranian terrorist regime’s decision to launch more than 300 missiles and drones at Israel ‘.
“Iran and their allies, such as Hamas and Hezbollah, are not just a threat to Israel, they are a threat to all of us in the West. They despise our way of life, our freedoms and our democracy and they should not be allowed to do that.” Get away with attacking the democratic state of Israel,” he added.
A minister said this earlier PoliticsHome they believed that most of the Conservative Party was in favor of continuing to support Israel and was critical of the Foreign Office.
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